The Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs is gearing up to pay huge year-end bonuses to its 31,000 employees after raking in quarterly profits of $3.19bn (£1.96bn), boosted by astute trading, resurgent stocks and a return to relative normality on the financial markets.
Goldman's profits of $35m a day for the three months to September were more than three times as much as the bank made during the same period in 2008. Under its policy of setting aside almost half of its revenue to pay its staff, the firm has built up a compensation fund of $16.7bn for the year to date – including $5.35bn set aside in the last quarter. guardian.co.uk