Goldman Sachs creates another 38 millionaire chiefs

Goldman Sachs, the secretive US investment bank, yesterday elevated 38 of its top executives to the hotly contested position of partner, which virtually guarantees millionaire status.

The new partners, who are locked into the riches of the multi-million pound investment bank with an equity stake, were joined for the first time by 87 managing directors who are being groomed as future partners.

These new, non-partnership positions, called "extended managing directors", were created by the bank to deter high-flyers below partnership status from quitting for rival firms.

The bank, owned by 170 or so partners who are named every two years, is 127 years old and has a reputation as a hard-hitting, gruelling place to work, where the rewards are generous.

The partners are paid a hefty basic salary but forego the bonuses of their lower-ranking colleagues, which can top pounds 1m, in return for a profitable stake in the bank.

Partners share in the profits of the bank, which in the first nine months of this year produced taxable earnings of $1.9bn (pounds 1.2bn), setting Goldman on course to beat 1993 when it created a host of millionaires with its bonus payouts. But much of their profit remains in the bank as risk capital until they retire.

In a year which is already promising to reward the City's top dealers, traders and corporate financiers with record bonuses, the Goldman partners and managing directors can be certain of astronomical rewards.

Some of the managing directors named yesterday will already be receiving basic salaries of pounds 1m, even before bonuses are calculated next month.

Of the 38 new partners, eight are based in the bank's London office in Fleet Street and two are Britons - Glenn Earle, an investment banker based in Frankfurt and London-based Paul Deighton.

The other seven new partners based in London were named as Erland Karlsson and Girish Reddy, both in the bank's equities division, Ronald Marks from fixed income, investment bankers Timothy Plaut, Muneer Satter and Howard Schiller, and Geoffrey Grant from J Aron, the bank's commodity unit.

Nine Britons rank among the new non-partner managing directors, who will be receiving basic salaries ranging from pounds 200,000 to pounds 1m, with the lower salaries typically paid to researchers rather than proprietary traders - usually the highest-paid group in an investment bank.

Andrew Devenport, based in Tokyo in the bank's fixed income department, is one of the Britons becoming a non-partner managing director. He is joined by New York-based Briton Peter Niculescu who is also a fixed income specialists.

The other Britons are based in Fleet Street. They are Charles Eve and Louis Greig, who are both in the equities division, Sion Kearsey, a fixed income specialist, corporate financiers Christopher French and Charles Brown, Christian Siva-Jothy from J Aron and Roderick Jack from Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Other London-based executives were granted non-partner managing director roles. They are Thomas Brasco, David Kaplan, Emmanuel Roman, Danie Roscini, Antonie Schwartz, Noreen Harrington, Jean-Luc Blamonti, Andrew Chisholm. Claudio Coslamagna. Pieter Maarten Feenstra, Richard Gnodde, Susan Leadem and Theodore Sotir.