There will be gritted teeth and grimaces at Goldman Sachs this November when the firm (probably) announces anything from 50-60 partners, instead of the 69 it announced in 2018 and the 84 it ennobled in the wild and frothy times of 2016.
Who cares? Why would anyone want to be a Goldman Sachs partner anyway?
The answer seems to be, anyone who aspires to earn up a comfortable seven figures.
The standard salary for a Goldman Sachs partner in New York City is currently $950k according to the two partner salaries registered this year on the U.S. H1B visa database.
However, in addition to this, partners get a cut of a ‘partner bonus pool,’ based on the firm’s operating profits. Partner bonuses are capped at $35m according to Goldman’s historic partner compensation plan. It’s not clear whether anyone actually achieves this amount, but key members of Goldman’s securities business were rumoured to earn gigantic amounts in the distant past.
Today, $35m bonuses seem highly unlikely. The best indication of partner pay at Goldman Sachs in 2020 is probably the remuneration disclosure it makes in Europe each year. Last year, eight members of the ‘management body’ at Goldman Sachs International in Europe shared around $38m between them (based on the firm’s stock price at the end of 2019), or an average of $4.7m each. This is supplemented, likely to the tune of around $1m or $2m a year, by money made from investing in Goldman’s own funds.
In other words, making partner at Goldman Sachs is lucrative. But in purely financial terms, making partner somewhere like Citadel might be better.
Sarah Butcher – Read more on efinancialcareers.com
