Goldman Sachs partner list drops

NEW YORK

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which is scheduled to announce its new class of partners, next week, has 407 members of that elite group, down 31 in about nine months, according to a company filing.

That's because 33 people listed as part of the partnership in a February document weren't included in a filing released Nov. 2. Two names -- Mark Schwartz, hired in June to run the company's business in Asia, and Richard Phillips, an Australian national -- were added to the latest filing.

Goldman Sachs, the fifthbiggest U.S. bank by assets, selects employees every two years to a so-called partnership more than 13 years after the firm became a publicly traded company. The partners, who partake in a special compensation pool, owned about 11.4 percent of the company's shares as of Oct. 22, down from 11.8 percent on Feb. 1, the filings show. David Wells, a spokesman for the bank, declined to comment.

Some of the names missing from the latest filing had already been reported, such as former Securities Division CoHead David B. Heller and Lucas van Praag, the former head of corporate communications. Others hadn't been announced.

Names dropped from the latest list include investment bankers Jason G. Cahilly, who specializes in advising media and telecommunications companies; Alastair J. Hunt, who works with businesses involved in natural resources; Kevin A. Quinn, a specialist in semiconductor firms and Richard A. Kimball Jr., who worked with the health-care industry.

Anthony W. Ling, who left his role as head of European equity research in 2010 to focus on other investment research initiatives, was also dropped from the latest partner list, as was Lindsay P. LoBue, who had worked in credit-derivative sales, and Kaysie P. Uniacke, who held senior roles in the asset- management division.

Last week's filing also disclosed stock sales in October by some of Goldman Sachs's most senior executives. Timothy J. O'Neill, co-head of Goldman Sachs Investment Management, sold 32,021 shares on Oct. 17 for $124.36 apiece, for a total of $3.98 million.