Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, earned $67.9 million (£ 34 million) in 2007 dwarfing rivals to set a new pay record for the head of a Wall Street investment bank.

Mr Blankfein, 53, will receive $26.8 million in cash plus $41.1 million in shares and options on top of a $600,000 base salary, according to a US regulatory filing.

The payout, which is 27 per cent higher than last year, is the largest ever for an executive at a Wall Street investment bank according to research by Bloomberg and comes after Goldman Sachs announced record pre-tax profits of $17.6 billion for 2007 last week.

Mr Blankfein, who succeeded Henry Paulson, now US Treasury Secretary, to lead Goldman last year, is one of only two chief executives at the five largest Wall Street banks to receive a bonus after a turbulent year in financial markets.

The other is Richard Fuld, chief executive of Lehman Brothers, who was paid around $35 million in shares. Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack said last week that he would forgo his bonus after the bank announced a “deeply disappointing” fourth-quarter loss, the first in its history.

James Cayne, the chief executive of Bear Stearns, will also go without his bonus while John Thain, chief executive of Merrill Lynch, will not receive a bonus because he has only recently succeeded Stanley O’Neal.

Goldman bucked the trend on Wall Street by avoiding significant losses after credit markets collapsed in the summer. While other banks announced massive writedowns on debt securities, it emerged last week that Goldman traders had reaped $4 billion on a bet that the value of US sub-prime mortgages would decline.

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