Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. invited 115 employees to become partners, a designation that rewards them with a bigger share of bonuses at the securities industry's most profitable firm.

The new members of Goldman's most exclusive club include Mark Florian, the firm's top infrastructure banker, James Esposito, head of investment-grade debt syndication, and Martin Werner, a co-head of Latin America investment banking and former Mexican deputy finance minister, according to an internal memorandum that lists the ``Partner Class of 2006.'' Partners are named every two years.

Becoming partner ``is very prestigious and you can get paid a lot, but it's also very, very hard,'' said Alan Johnson, managing director of New York-based pay consultant Johnson Associates. ``They turn the treadmill up even faster.''

The title is a vestige of Goldman's days as Wall Street's last remaining partnership. New York-based Goldman went public in 1999 after 130 years of ownership by the partners and now pays its most-senior executives mainly in stock.

This year's partner class is the biggest since Goldman's initial public offering. About half of them are based in the Americas, with the rest split evenly between Europe and Asia.

Europe, Asia Split

The new partners also include Douglas Feagin, a Hong Kong- based adviser to financial-services companies, Simon Mansfield, who oversees European distressed-debt trading from London and chief Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag.

The appointments take effect at the end of the firm's fiscal year next month. Peter Rose, a Goldman spokesman in New York, declined to comment.

Executives who become partners share in a special bonus at the end of every year. Goldman's profit through the first nine months of its fiscal year was $6.39 billion, more than any securities firm has ever earned in a full year. Goldman has set aside a record $13.9 billion for compensation and benefits so far this year.

Goldman had 287 partners before the new class was named today. They accounted for slightly more than 1 percent of the firm's 25,647 employees. Goldman named 99 partners in 2004, 78 in 2002, and 114 in 2000.

This year's new partners are:

Mark E. Agne Gregory A. Agran David M. Atkinson Elizabeth E. Beshel Mark R. Beveridge Leslie A. Biddle Jan Boomaars Jason M. Brown Melissa R. Brown Steven M. Bunson Nicholas F. Burgin Mary D. Byron Jin Yong Cai Valentino D. Carlotti Lik Shuen David Chan R. Martin Chavez James B. Clark Peter H. Comisar William J. Conley Jr. Colin J. Corgan Jean A. De Pourtales Giorgio De Santis Katinka I. Domotorffy Donald J. Duet Jason H. Ekaireb Peter C. Enns James P. Esposito Carl Faker Douglas L. Feagin Luca D. Ferrari Mark B. Florian Timothy B. Flynn Elisabeth Fontenelli Silverio Foresi Colleen A. Foster Orit P. Freedman Matthew T. Fremont-Smith James R. Garman Kevin S. Gasvoda Joseph H. Gleberman Lorenzo Grabau Michael J. Graziano Kenneth L. Hirsch Simon N. Holden Alastair J. Hunt Zubin P. Irani Andrew J. Jonas Andrew J. Kaiser Richard A. Kimball Jr. Koji Kotaka J. Douglas Kramer Jonathan A. Langer Gregory D. Lee Ronald Lee Tim Leissner Todd W. Leland Allan S. Levine Brian T. Levine George C. Liberopoulos Peter J. Lyon Paula B. Madoff Puneet Malhi Simon I. Mansfield Allan S. Marson James A. McNamara Bernard A. Mensah Julian R. Metherell Michael J. Millette Timothy H. Moe Thomas C. Morrow Ken N. Murphy Arjun N. Murti Kenichi Nagasu Gavin G. O'Connor Peter C. Oppenheimer Robert W. Pack Konstantinos N. Pantazopoulos Sheila H. Patel Kenneth A. Pontarelli Dioscoro-Roy I. Ramos Krishna S. Rao Buckley T. Ratchford Sara E. Recktenwald Gene Reilly David M. Ryan Ankur A. Sahu Guy E. Saidenberg Susan J. Scher Clare R. Scherrer John A. Sebastian Peter D. Selman David A. Shiffman Kunihiko Shiohara Theodore T. Sotir Christoph W. Stanger Laurence Stein Chase O. Stevenson Morgan C. Sze Thomas D. Teles Daisuke Toki Peter K. Tomozawa Lucas van Praag Robin A. Vince Alejandro Vollbrechthausen Casper W. Von Koskull Theodore T. Wang Alan S. Waxman Nicholas H. Weber Martin M. Werner Andrew F. Wilson Samuel J. Wisnia Andrew E. Wolff Neil J. Wright Shinichi Yokote Sanaz Zaimi

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

Last Updated: October 25, 2006 17:57 EDT