FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER

Goldman Sachs ready to hand out £7bn salary and bonus package... after its £6bn bail-out


By
Simon Duke
Last updated at 8:55 AM on 30th October 2008



U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs HQ which has set aside £7bn for bonuses and salaries this year
Goldman
Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound
bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.
The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday. Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million. The
size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which
the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion
bail-out. As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees. News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance. The
same bankers who have brought the global economy to its knees seem to
pocketing the same kind of rewards they got during the boom years. Gordon
Brown has vowed to crack down on the culture of greed in the City as
part of his £500billion bail-out of the UK banking industry. But that won't affect the estimated 100 London partners working at Goldman Sachs's London headquarters. The
firm - known as Golden Sacks for the bumper bonuses it pay its top
bankers - is expected to cut the payouts by a third this year. However,
profits are falling much faster. Earnings have plunged 47 per
cent so far this year amid the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression. This has wiped more than 50 per cent off the company's market value.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1081624/Goldman-Sachs-ready-hand-7BILLION-salary-bonus-package--6bn-bail-out.html#