Goldman Selects 110 Partners as Wall Street Rebounds
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. selected 110 people to become partners, up from 94 in the last round two years ago, as Wall Street rebounds from the financial crisis.
Among the employees named this year were Donald J. Casturo from the commodities unit and Dina H. Powell, the firm’s head of corporate engagement, according to a list (see full list below) published in an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The appointments take effect Jan. 1. David Wells, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs in New York, declined to comment.
The elections are a vestige of the firm’s days as Wall Street’s last remaining partnership, before the company ended 130 years of private ownership with its 1999 initial public offering. Partners, who get a $600,000 salary, share in a special compensation pool and typically receive most of their yearend bonuses in restricted stock.
“There are no partners in a corporation, this is an honorary designation that enables people in it to participate in a bonus pool,” said Roy Smith, a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business who was a partner at Goldman Sachs before it went public. “This is a promotion for most of them in terms of how much they get paid.”
Goldman Sachs’s profit through the first nine months of 2010 was $5.97 billion, down 29 percent from the same period last year. The company has set aside $13.1 billion for compensation and benefits this year, 21 percent less than at the same time in 2009. The stock, up 11 cents to $165.21 at 2:14 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, is down less than 3 percent this year.
Record Pay
Goldman Sachs set a Wall Street pay record in 2007 when it doled out more than $20 billion, or 44 percent of revenue, to 30,522 employees at the time. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, 56, was awarded a $67.9 million bonus that year, the highest ever for a securities industry CEO.
Since the 2008 financial crisis led governments around the world to supply taxpayer money to keep banks afloat, Goldman Sachs has cut compensation. Last year the firm slashed the ratio of revenue paid to employees to 36 percent, the lowest since the firm went public.
This year Goldman Sachs has set aside 43 percent of revenue to pay employees, or 45 percent when the cost of a U.K. tax on bonuses is included. In a presentation yesterday at a New York conference hosted by Bank of America Corp., Blankfein said the firm’s decisions on compensation depend on “what the market requires us to do in most cases, and I think that that is a bit of an evolving picture.”
Before the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs would publish its list of partners in a press release. Since the crisis, the firm has stopped making the list public.
“I can’t imagine why they want to call attention to what is in essence not an appointment of managers but a transfer of people into a different compensation category,” Smith said.
The following is a list of the 2010 partner class at Goldman Sachs:
Chuck Adams Nick S. Advani William D. Anderson Scott B. Barringer Gareth W. Bater Tracey E. Benford Avanish R. Bhavsar V. Bunty Bohra Stefan R. Bollinger Robert Boroujerdi Alison L. Bott Sally A. Boyle Christoph Brand Torrey J. Browder Philippe L. Camu Donald J. Casturo Chia-Lin Chang Steven N. Cho David T. Y. Chou Thalia Chryssikou Colin Coleman Kenneth W. Coquillette Cyril Cottu Massimo Della Ragione Michele I. Docharty David P. Eisman Harry Eliades Christopher Eoyang Samuel W. Finkelstein Matthew R. Gibson Michelle Gill Michael J. Grimaldi Dylan S. Halterlein Elizabeth M. Hammack Dane E. Holmes Ning Hong* Shin Horie Stephanie Hui Eric S. Jordan Vijay M. Karnani Christopher M. Keogh Peter Kimpel Kelvin Koh Adam M. Korn David Kostin Joerg H. Kukies Andre Laport Ribeiro Geoffery Lee Laurent Lellouche Eugene H. Leouzon Wayne M. Leslie John R. Levene Leland Lim Lindsay P. LoBue David B. Ludwig Raghav Maliah Matthew F. Mallgrave Alain Marcus Robert A. Mass Matthew B. McClure Patrick S. McClymont Dermot W. McDonogh Richard P. McNeil Avinash Mehrotra Jonathan M. Meltzer Bruce H. Mendelsohn Peeyush Misra Bryan P. Mix Atosa Moini Ricardo Mora Ezra V. Nahum Nigel M. O’Sullivan Nirubhan Pathmanabhan Jonathan M. Penkin Michelle H. Pinggera Dhruv Piplani Dina H. Powell Sumit Rajpal Ganesh Ramani James H. Reynolds Stuart Riley Karl J. Robijns Craig Russell Luke A. Sarsfield III Stephen B. Scobie John C. Shaffer Konstantin A. Shakhnovich Daniel M. Shefter Michael L. Simpson Mark R. Sorrell J. Richard Suth Jasper Tans Patrick Tassin de Nonneville Megan M. Taylor Teresa Teague Pawan Tewari Klaus B. Toft Kenro Tsutsumi Richard Tufft Toshihiko Umetani Jonathan R. Vanica Philip J. Venables Simone Verri Daniel Wainstein Kevin A. Walker Robert P. Wall David D. Wildermuth Chang-Po Yang* Alan Zhang Xing Zhang**
To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net Joshua Fineman at jfineman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Jin Lee/Bloomberg
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was awarded a $67.9 million bonus in 2007, the highest ever for a securities industry CEO.
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was awarded a $67.9 million bonus in 2007, the highest ever for a securities industry CEO. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- William Cohan, author of "House of Cards" and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor, discusses Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s selection of 110 employees to become partners. Cohan speaks with Lisa Murphy on Bloomberg Television's "Fast Forward." (Source: Bloomberg)
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