Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. invited 94 employees to become partners, a designation that gives them a bigger share of a bonus pool that's likely to shrink this year amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The number is down from 2006, when New York-based Goldman elected 115 people to the partnership ranks. This year's inductees include Jan Hatzius, Goldman's chief U.S. economist, and L. Brooks Entwistle, who runs the company's banking operations in India. The list was published in an internal memo confirmed by Andrea Rachman, a company spokeswoman.

The title is a vestige of Goldman's days as Wall Street's last remaining partnership, before the firm went public in 1999 after 130 years of private ownership. Rewards are likely to diminish this year after Goldman transformed itself into a bank holding company, raised more than $10 billion in equity from private investors and took $10 billion from the U.S. government. The company's shares have fallen 56 percent this year.

``Is the prospect of being a Goldman partner as bright as it used to be? The answer is definitely no,'' said Henry Higdon, managing partner of Higdon Partners LLC, a New York-based search firm specializing in financial services. ``The days are gone when these people were earning over $20 million.''

Partners, named every two years, share in a special bonus at the end of every year. Goldman's profit through the first nine months of its fiscal year was $4.44 billion, down 47 percent from last year's record. The company has set aside $11.4 billion for compensation and benefits this year, down 32 percent from the same time in 2007.

The appointments take effect at the end of the firm's fiscal year next month.

Including the new partners, the total number of partners will be 443. About 60 percent of the new partners are in the Americas, with 25 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and about 15 percent in Asia.

The following is the list of new Goldman partners from an internal memo today.

Paul R. Aaron
Sean J. Gallagher
David M. Marcinek
Heather K. Shemilt
Sanggyun Ahn
Gonzalo R. Garcia
Blake W. Mather
Magid N. Shenouda
Philip S. Armstrong
Paul E. Germain
John J. McCabe
Suhail A. Sikhtian
Charles Baillie
Paul Graves
John J. McGuire Jr.
Gavin Simms
Philip R. Berlinski
E. Glenn Hadden
Milton R. Millman III
Marshall Smith
Robert A. Berry
Jonathan J. Hall
Christopher Milner
John D. Storey
Oliver R. Bolitho
Jan Hatzius
Christina P. Minnis
Patrick M. Street
Patrick T. Boyle
Martin Hintze
Takashi Murata
Ram K. Sundaram
Stephen Branton-Speak
Todd Hohman
Todd G. Owens
Robert J. Sweeney
Anne F. Brennan
James P. Houghton
Craig W. Packer
Michael J. Swenson
Samuel S. Britton
Paul J. Huchro
Gilberto Pozzi
Jeffrey M. Tomasi
Jason G. Cahilly
Hidehiro Imatsu
Lora J. Price
David G. Torrible
Martin Cher
Alan S. Kava
Lorin P. Radtke
Frederick Towfigh
Denis P. Coleman III
Dimitrios Kavvathas
Richard N. Ramsden
Greg A. Tusar
Kevin P. Connors
Larry M. Kellerman
Michael J. Richman
Andrea A. Vittorelli
James V. Covello
Hideki Kinuhata
Michael Rimland
Paul Walker
Jeffrey R. Currie
Michael E. Koester
Luigi G. Rizzo
Alasdair J. Warren
Albert F. Dombrowski
J. Christopher A. Kojima
Scott A. Romanoff
Dominic A. Wilson
Thomas M. Dowling
Michiel P. Lap
Julian Salisbury
Steve Windsor
L. Brooks Entwistle
Brian J. Lee
Paul D. Scialla
Martin Wiwen-Nilsson
Stephan J. Feldgoise
David A. Lehman
Peter E. Scialla
Denise A. Wyllie
Benjamin W. Ferguson
Deborah R. Leone
Peter A. Seccia
*Han Song Zhu
Wolfgang Fink
John S. Lindfors
Rebecca M. Shaghalian
Timur F. Galen
H.C. Liu
Devesh P. Shah

*An employee of Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities.


To contact the reporter on this story:
Christine Harper in New York at 
charper@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 29, 2008 12:40 EDT