By Justin Baer
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. picked 78 employees for its latest
group of partners, adding new names to one of Wall Street's most
coveted clubs.
The latest class of partners, eight larger than the class
appointed two years ago, will bring the roster of current partners
to 467.
Goldman Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein and President Gary Cohn
notified the new partners of their selection Wednesday, and the
group will formally join the partnership ranks in 2015.
Goldman's life as a private partnership, when membership in this
inner circle meant tying one's personal wealth to the firm's
capital, ended with its 1999 initial public offering.
But the ritual of selecting partners every two years has
remained a core part of Goldman's identity, and a way to reward its
most productive and promising employees. The title still resonates
throughout the rest of Wall Street, whose denizens will search
Wednesday's list for familiar names. It also brings a salary of
about $900,000, plus bonuses that can be multiples of the base
pay.
Goldman picked 70 partners in 2012, its smallest class since the
IPO, and by August executives had expected the newest class would
come in at a similar size, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Goldman aims to limit the partner list to about 1.5%-1.6% of its
full-time workforce, people familiar with the matter have said.
The class sizes tend to fluctuate with the state of the economy.
In 2006, as Wall Street was riding a massive boom in the credit
markets, Goldman named 115 partners. Four years earlier, when the
economy was still recovering from the dot-com bubble burst, the
firm promoted just 78.
This year's class includes 25 employees from the firm's
securities division, which houses many of the firm's traders. That
was down slightly from 27 in 2012. There were 23 investment bankers
on the list, up from 21 two years ago. Goldman named 11
investment-management employees, compared with eight in 2012.
Sixty-four percent of the 2014 class works in the Americas.
Eleven, or 14%, are women. Ten women were named partners in
2012.
"These decisions are extremely difficult and we would like to
acknowledge the hard work of those who were not selected," Messrs.
Blankfein and Cohn wrote in a memo to employees. "We are confident
that many of them will be selected in the future."
The firm's 467 partners, also called "partner managing
directors," will comprise about 1.6% of Goldman's full-time
workforce. That is down slightly from 2012, when the partnership
accounted for 1.7% of staff.
In some years, Goldman's partnership class has reflected the
firm's efforts to adapt to its own challenges. Fifty-eight
employees were anointed in 1994, at that time the biggest
partnership class ever, after trading losses led a number of the
firm's partners to exit and heightened the need for new talent at
more senior ranks.
As of September, the firm's total workforce stood at 33,500.
Goldman doesn't disclose how many work full time and how many are
part-time or contractors. Typically, though, the firm carries
several thousand temporary workers and consultants, people familiar
with the matter.
Goldman partners have long held special perks at the firm. The
firm's several hundred partners participate in their own bonus pool
separate from the rest of the firm's employees, and have more
choices on the private Goldman funds in which they can invest.
The expectations also rise, and partners are held to higher
standard by the firm's senior executives. Partners are expected to
join a number of committees that help oversee everything from risk
to its business standards.
Write to Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires