Dick Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, has offered to give up $48m (€43m) due to him in future compensation and will instead make do with his agreed $140m pay out, $1.4m salary and bonus.

The NYSE made its first public response to the furore that followed the disclosure two weeks ago that Grasso was to cash-in on $140m in deferred pay, most of it made in the past eight years.