It’s not all bad news on Wall Street, at least not for those at the top of the heap.

Goldman Sachs, who pays out the most in bonuses each year, on Wednesday named 94 new members to its elite club of partner managing directors. This group of 443 men and women typically share a fifth of the firm’s bonus pool, which is nothing to sneeze at, even if compensation is down this year. 

Below is the memo and the list:

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October 29, 2008

Goldman Sachs Announces the Partner Class of 2008
We are pleased to announce that the following individuals have been invited to become partners as of November 29, 2008, the start of our next fiscal year. These appointments recognize the contributions and potential of some of the firm’s most valued senior professionals.

Paul R. Aaron

Sean J. Gallagher

David M. Marcinek

Heather K. Shemilt

Sanggyun Ahn

Gonzalo R. Garcia

Blake W. Mather

Magid N. Shenouda

Philip S. Armstrong

Paul E. Germain

John J. McCabe

Suhail A. Sikhtian

Charles Baillie

Paul Graves

John J. McGuire Jr.

Gavin Simms

Philip R. Berlinski

E. Glenn Hadden

Milton R. Millman III

Marshall Smith

Robert A. Berry

Jonathan J. Hall

Christopher Milner

John D. Storey

Oliver R. Bolitho

Jan Hatzius

Christina P. Minnis

Patrick M. Street

Patrick T. Boyle

Martin Hintze

Takashi Murata

Ram K. Sundaram

Stephen Branton-Speak

Todd Hohman

Todd G. Owens

Robert J. Sweeney

Anne F. Brennan

James P. Houghton

Craig W. Packer

Michael J. Swenson

Samuel S. Britton

Paul J. Huchro

Gilberto Pozzi

Jeffrey M. Tomasi

Jason G. Cahilly

Hidehiro Imatsu

Lora J. Price

David G. Torrible

Martin Cher

Alan S. Kava

Lorin P. Radtke

Frederick Towfigh

Denis P. Coleman III

Dimitrios Kavvathas

Richard M. Ramsden

Greg A. Tusar

Kevin P. Connors

Larry M. Kellerman

Michael J. Richman

Andrea A. Vittorelli

James V. Covello

Hideki Kinuhata

Michael Rimland

Paul Walker

Jeffrey R. Currie

Michael E. Koester

Luigi G. Rizzo

Alasdair J. Warren

Albert F. Dombrowski

J. Christopher

A. Kojima

Scott A. Romanoff

Dominic A. Wilson

Thomas M. Dowling

Michiel P. Lap

Julian Salisbury

Steve Windsor

L. Brooks Entwistle

Brian J. Lee

Paul D. Scialla

Martin Wiwen-Nilsson

Stephan J. Feldgoise

David A. Lehman

Peter E. Scialla

Denise A. Wyllie

Benjamin W. Ferguson

Deborah R. Leone

Peter A. Seccia

Han Song Zhu*

Wolfgang Fink

John S. Lindfors

Rebecca M. Shaghalian

Timur F. Galen

H.C. Liu

Devesh P. Shah
* Employee of Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Company Limited

We congratulate all of those selected and wish them continued success in their careers. These decisions are extremely difficult and we would like to acknowledge the contributions of those who were not selected this year. We are confident that many of them will be selected in the future.
Lloyd C. Blankfein  Jon Winkelried  Gary D. Cohn

With commodity prices sagging in line with global growth, BHP Billiton’s mammoth, unsolicited bid for rival Rio Tinto might seem a lot less threatening. Certainly the price of the deal has a lot less wow in it, having fallen from $170 billion to under $70 billion in just a few short months. And in a few days, efforts to put the deal together will be one year old. Happy birthday.

Japan, woefully devoid of such resources, is home to two of the world’s biggest steel companies. Nippon Steel and JFE Holdings account for 6 percent of global steel output. The Nikkei business daily reports the country is stepping up pressure to block the deal.

The paper said Japan’s vice minister for international affairs at the trade and industry ministry will urge the European Commission to join it in blocking the merger, though a ministry official said there were no plans to make such a request.

It might seem petty to stir things up with global commodity prices in retreat. But unlike other industrial metals like copper, iron ore prices are not softening much. Analysts we polled said prices are likely to remain flat or rise modestly in 2009 contract talks, after the stunning hike of up to 96.5 percent in 2008.

And Japan’s outdated competition law makes it hard for the country to take any meaningful action to block the deal on its own. Its competition regulators ordered BHP to submit information on its bid for Rio last month, but BHP has refused to look at the request.

The EU commission has set a Jan. 15 deadline for making a final ruling on the deal, which has already been cleared by Australian and U.S. competition regulators. BHP’s share price is down 35 percent this year, and Rio’s is off 47 percent. By next year, the merger may be looking even less like a mighty move towards a monopoly and more like a necessity.

Deals of the day:

* Foster’s Group, the world’s second-largest wine group, said it has yet to receive any proposals on its wine business, whose future it is reviewing.

* U.S. private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings was picked as the favored bidder for the purchase of South Korea’s Daewoo Electronics from its creditors, leading creditor Woori Bank said.

* Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Japan’s third-largest bank, is in talks to buy around a 2 percent stake in South Korea’s KB Financial for about 20 billion yen ($201.8 million), a person familiar with the matter said.

* Norwegian oilfield services group Sevan Marine said it was in talks with potential investors in its Sevan Drilling unit.

* Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has agreed to a further investment of up to 12 billion rupees ($147 million) in Pakistan’s NIB Bank via a rights issue, NIB said.