Goldman's 299 New Managing Directors

It’s late October, and that means it’s promotion time at Goldman Sachs. Every year, shortly before Halloween, the firm names new managing directors, and every other year it names the elite partnership managing directors.
Today Goldman set a new record, naming 299 spanking new managing directors. (Last year 263 were tapped.) Officially, the firm is “inviting” these employees to become MDs on December 1st, although we’ve never head of anyone declining the invitation.
Reflecting the fact that Goldman increasingly runs the entire world, and not just America, fifty-seven percent of the new managing directors work outside the U.S. Bloomberg reports that 30% of the class of 2007 Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 10% in Japan and 17% in the rest of Asia including China and India.
And it’s not just the number of managing directors that’s going up this year. The amount Goldman set aside for bonuses is going up too. “Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman set aside $16.9 billion to pay salaries, benefits and bonuses in the first nine months of the year, surpassing the record for all of last year,” Bloomberg notes.
The increased numbers—both in compensation and number of new MDs—reflects the fact that Goldman has broken away from the pack this year. As we noted yesterday, Goldman—which reported profits during the credit crunch as many banks took gigantic losses—is just about the only firm on Wall Street with a positive stock performance for the year.
Congratulations, lads and lasses. You are buying tonight, of course.
Goldman Sachs Announces New Managing Directors [Goldman Sachs press release]
Goldman Names 299 New Managing Directors, Most Ever [Bloomberg]