Attempting to trim down the magnitude of annual bonuses of its top-rung executives, Morgan Stanley intends raising the base salaries of a number of its top officers and top-earning employees. The proposal comes at a time when the firm is making efforts to return the $10 billion government aid.

In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Morgan Stanley said that several thousand of its executives will be given a substantial jump in their salaries this year. In fact, as per the plan approved by the company board's compensation committee, the base pay of most of the top executives will increase two-fold.

Specifically speaking, the base salary of James Gorman and Walid Chammah - Co-Presidents of Morgan Stanley - will be raised by an annual $800,000; and that of Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher, Chief Administrative Officer Thomas Nides, and Chief Legal Officer Gary Lynch will be raised by $750,000 each. However, there will be no increase in the $800,000 base salary for the CEO John Mack.

The recent-announced Morgan Stanley move, and similar moves by other firms, indicates that the Wall Street firms consider `compensation' to have played its part in the problems leading to the financial crisis. In its filing, Morgan Stanley said: "The salary adjustments are not intended to increase total annual compensation, but to restore a balance between fixed and variable compensation."