http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/companies/3406965.stm Would keep a guy in drink and women for a while. City trader's £30m record bonus A City trader has landed a record £30m bonus, according to reports. Driss Ben-Brahim, a trader at US investment bank Goldman Sachs, is believed to have generated millions of pounds in profits for the bank in 2003. The bonus would have been paid in cash, shares and share options worth at least £30m, estimates the Sunday Times. Mr Ben-Brahim, head of exotic derivatives, previously worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Trading in derivatives involves making a profit from small movements in futures and options. The newspaper quotes a City insider as saying Mr Ben-Brahim had developed a complicated trading strategy which had generated "some unbelievable windfalls". The trader's bonus puts him in the top 25 earners in the UK along with Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich, author JK Rowling and businessman Philip Green.
I guess GS made him MD last year and probably partner now that he made a nice sum of mney for the firm. I suppose getting $30M bonus would qualify you as a partner... http://www.gs.com/our_firm/media_center/articles/press_release_2002_article_021025144109.html So, this guy traded TIPS and made all that money? hmm... Doesn't seem possible... Maybe he traded other things as well. He was a talk titled, "Building a Global Inflation Business: A Dealer's Perspective for a New Asset Class Speaker: Driss Ben-Brahim, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International " http://www.bondmarkets.com/conferences/03TIPSseminar.shtml hey, Sle, do you know any clue about him or ask around your desk? hehe
damn! that must be sweet! If he got $54M USD bonus and we know that ibanks don't have good "cut" like prop trading shops(i.e. nothing like 50-80% cut or whatever). Let's say he did get a cut of 15%(which is already very high for an ibank). That implied he made $360M ($54M/.15)or more for the firm! Sweet! Probably more since GS is actually one of the worst underpayer on the Street.. He should have gone prop and get 100% cut as Don would put it. keke.
Better article here. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8426856%5E643,00.html
thanks for the article. much better. I think in terms of actual cash he probably "only" got $10-$20M of it. The rest is in stock options which will fluctuate with the value of GS stock, a kind of golden handcuff. But it would suck if GS stocks tanked and his options became useless even though he made all that money for the firm right? I'm sure he's a smart guy that probably structured his pay as carefully as he structured his exotic derivatives trades. But it didnt' really say much of what kind of stuff did he traded! To make a few hundred million, he had to take some big risk relative to his book.