Daily Dispatches: Macquarie and Goldman shake up bonuses

Macquarie Group Ltd is set to put about $350m of the retained profit share of its senior management into shares, with managing director Nicholas Moore to tip his entire pre-2009 retained profit share into stock under the new arrangement. According to Macquarie, the shares will be acquired under the Macquarie Group Employee Retained Equity Plan (MEREP), its proposed new employee equity plan. (Business Spectator)

Goldman Sachs says all 2009 bonuses for top executives will be in the form of restricted stock instead of cash under a new policy aimed at discouraging excessive risk-taking.The firm's 30-member management committee will receive bonuses in the form of shares that cannot be sold for five years. (Sky News)

National Australia Bank said today its wealth management arm MLC has an option to acquire 23 per cent of financial planning outfit Professional Investment Services or PIS from UK-based Aviva. (The Australian)

It's been a good couple of weeks for the bankers all around the country who specialise in securitisation. And with good reason: a handful of well-supported RMBS deals done recently are being interpreted as signs that even this very niche part of the banking industry is now following the rest of the economy upwards. (Insto)

Almost 60 per cent of financial planning principals are in the process of moving to fee-based remuneration models for clients, a new survey has shown. (Investor Daily)

The biggest three-month surge in Australian employment in three years is increasing pressure on central bank Governor Glenn Stevens to resume an unprecedented round of interest-rate increases early next year. Employers added 99,500 workers in the three months to Nov. 30, the most since the third quarter of 2006, pushing down the jobless rate to 5.7 per cent and confounding the median forecast of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg for a 5.9 per cent rate. (Bloomberg)