Here is a permie who cannot certainly complain. 
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/...n_page_id=1770
A happy Christmas for the city's £50m man
By Colin Fernandez and David Williams
Last updated at 11:48am on 14th December 2006
The astonishing payment is thought to be the largest from a total pot of £8.3billion given to Goldman Sachs workers.
So far the U.S. global investment firm - known as 'golden sacks' - has not confirmed the exact amount of its biggest bonus or who it went to.
Insiders however have pointed the finger at Driss Ben-Brahim who is reckoned to be Britain's highest-paid trader.
He heads Goldman's hugely profitable 'proprietary' trading desk, which takes risks on the world's markets with the bank's - rather than clients' - money.
He is said to have picked up a bonus of more than £30million for his performance in 2004.
This year has been yet more profitable for the firm and he is thought to have banked even more.
Hundreds of other staff have collected £1million payments while senior traders and dealmakers are reckoned to have pocketed up to £10million each. The average Goldman Sachs employee will receive £320,000 this year from a bonus pool that is up 40 per cent on last year's.
The rumoured £50million bonus was branded 'obscene' by trade unions.
It is about 2,000 times the average wage and bigger than the profits made by many big-name companies.
As head of the proprietary trading desk, Moroccan-born Mr Ben-Brahim makes bets on everything from movements in interest rates and exchange rates to the price of copper.
Educated at the Ecole Centrale in Paris in the late Eighties, he took an MBA in 1990 at Insead, Europe's most prestigious business school.
The 42-year-old has risen swiftly through the ranks at Goldman Sachs. He was made managing director of the bank in 2002 and promoted to partner level in 2004.
Before joining the company, he worked at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.
His bonus comes in the form of cash and share options which are designed to ensure loyalty to Goldman Sachs. The firm employs 24,500 people worldwide with 4,500 in London.
The presumed record payout was one of hundreds awarded on Monday, bonus day, or 'B-Day' in banking parlance.
It was part of an avalanche of £9billion in cash being shared between the Square Mile's star performers.
Known for his low profile, Mr Ben-Brahim lives in an imposing four-floor, cream-painted £2.8million townhouse in a conservation area of Kensington, West London.
He and his Iranian wife Heli, 41, extensively renovated the front of the property when they moved in.
She is a trustee of the Popli Khalatbari Charitable Foundation, which supports social projects in Iran - including rebuilding a school in the earthquake-devastated city of Bam.
Neighbours said the couple have two children, a boy aged five and a girl of two, who are looked after by a nanny.
One neighbour said: 'I know Driss through banking. He is a lovely guy, his son plays football with mine occasionally.
'He is not showy - he doesn't have a chauffeur, he gets cabs to work. He keeps a very low profile.'
Mrs Ben-Brahim drives the family's 4x4.
The couple live close to the financier and historian Robert Lloyd George, a great-grandson of the former prime minister David Lloyd George.
While last night her husband remained silent over the rumours of a record bonus, Mrs Ben-Brahim said: 'I wish people would not say my husband earned so much money.
'He would have had to have been a god to earn that, trading conditions were so difficult this year.'
Goldman Sachs put out a statement denying Mr Ben-Brahim had been paid a £50million bonus.
The firm did not say what the largest bonus package had been.
Similar massive payouts are expected in the weeks to come from the other major investment banks, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan.
Also expected to have reaped a bonus worth tens of millions at Goldman's is Manchester University graduate Michael Sherwood, 41, the bank's co-chief executive.
In line for similar payments are Richard Gnodde, 46, head of the bank's European operation and Simon Dingemanns, the firm's 43-year-old head of UK investment banking.
A Treasury spokesman confirmed that the bonuses would be subject to tax. 'We do have measures in place to make sure however they are paid we would tax their bonuses,' the spokesman added.
The workers who clean the City offices of Goldman Sachs are to vote on whether to strike.
They claim their numbers have been cut radically while their workloads have stayed the same. TGWU general secretary Tony Woodley said: 'Whilst bankers at Goldman Sachs will be splashing out on second homes, cars and polo ponies with their multi-million pound bonuses, cleaners are being squeezed by staff cutbacks.'
The union said cleaners who worked in the City of London were becoming more determined to improve their pay and conditions.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/...n_page_id=1770
A happy Christmas for the city's £50m man
By Colin Fernandez and David Williams
Last updated at 11:48am on 14th December 2006
The astonishing payment is thought to be the largest from a total pot of £8.3billion given to Goldman Sachs workers.
So far the U.S. global investment firm - known as 'golden sacks' - has not confirmed the exact amount of its biggest bonus or who it went to.
Insiders however have pointed the finger at Driss Ben-Brahim who is reckoned to be Britain's highest-paid trader.
He heads Goldman's hugely profitable 'proprietary' trading desk, which takes risks on the world's markets with the bank's - rather than clients' - money.
He is said to have picked up a bonus of more than £30million for his performance in 2004.
This year has been yet more profitable for the firm and he is thought to have banked even more.
Hundreds of other staff have collected £1million payments while senior traders and dealmakers are reckoned to have pocketed up to £10million each. The average Goldman Sachs employee will receive £320,000 this year from a bonus pool that is up 40 per cent on last year's.
The rumoured £50million bonus was branded 'obscene' by trade unions.
It is about 2,000 times the average wage and bigger than the profits made by many big-name companies.
As head of the proprietary trading desk, Moroccan-born Mr Ben-Brahim makes bets on everything from movements in interest rates and exchange rates to the price of copper.
Educated at the Ecole Centrale in Paris in the late Eighties, he took an MBA in 1990 at Insead, Europe's most prestigious business school.
The 42-year-old has risen swiftly through the ranks at Goldman Sachs. He was made managing director of the bank in 2002 and promoted to partner level in 2004.
Before joining the company, he worked at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.
His bonus comes in the form of cash and share options which are designed to ensure loyalty to Goldman Sachs. The firm employs 24,500 people worldwide with 4,500 in London.
The presumed record payout was one of hundreds awarded on Monday, bonus day, or 'B-Day' in banking parlance.
It was part of an avalanche of £9billion in cash being shared between the Square Mile's star performers.
Known for his low profile, Mr Ben-Brahim lives in an imposing four-floor, cream-painted £2.8million townhouse in a conservation area of Kensington, West London.
He and his Iranian wife Heli, 41, extensively renovated the front of the property when they moved in.
She is a trustee of the Popli Khalatbari Charitable Foundation, which supports social projects in Iran - including rebuilding a school in the earthquake-devastated city of Bam.
Neighbours said the couple have two children, a boy aged five and a girl of two, who are looked after by a nanny.
One neighbour said: 'I know Driss through banking. He is a lovely guy, his son plays football with mine occasionally.
'He is not showy - he doesn't have a chauffeur, he gets cabs to work. He keeps a very low profile.'
Mrs Ben-Brahim drives the family's 4x4.
The couple live close to the financier and historian Robert Lloyd George, a great-grandson of the former prime minister David Lloyd George.
While last night her husband remained silent over the rumours of a record bonus, Mrs Ben-Brahim said: 'I wish people would not say my husband earned so much money.
'He would have had to have been a god to earn that, trading conditions were so difficult this year.'
Goldman Sachs put out a statement denying Mr Ben-Brahim had been paid a £50million bonus.
The firm did not say what the largest bonus package had been.
Similar massive payouts are expected in the weeks to come from the other major investment banks, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan.
Also expected to have reaped a bonus worth tens of millions at Goldman's is Manchester University graduate Michael Sherwood, 41, the bank's co-chief executive.
In line for similar payments are Richard Gnodde, 46, head of the bank's European operation and Simon Dingemanns, the firm's 43-year-old head of UK investment banking.
A Treasury spokesman confirmed that the bonuses would be subject to tax. 'We do have measures in place to make sure however they are paid we would tax their bonuses,' the spokesman added.
The workers who clean the City offices of Goldman Sachs are to vote on whether to strike.
They claim their numbers have been cut radically while their workloads have stayed the same. TGWU general secretary Tony Woodley said: 'Whilst bankers at Goldman Sachs will be splashing out on second homes, cars and polo ponies with their multi-million pound bonuses, cleaners are being squeezed by staff cutbacks.'
The union said cleaners who worked in the City of London were becoming more determined to improve their pay and conditions.
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