Mr Peter Sutherland will be one of the beneficiaries from the decision by US private investment bank Goldman Sachs to put up shares for sale late this year - one of the last Wall Street giants to go public.
The offering is likely to represent 10 to 15 per cent of the firm's capital, the company said in a statement.
The 190 partners of Goldman Sachs, which was founded 129 years ago, decided "unanimously" to propose an initial public offering, the statement said. Partners' stakes are estimated to be worth $100 million (£71 million sterling) on average, although how the money will be divided up between the partners and the rest of the staff will not be clear for some time. Some more senior partners may have stakes worth more than $200 million.
Mr Peter Sutherland is a senior partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs International. His seniority should ensure that he shares fully in the pay-out, even though he only joined the firm in late 1995.
Goldman Sachs is perhaps the last big Wall Street name to enter the stock market. A detailed plan for the offering will be completed around mid-year, the statement said.
Estimates are that the firm was worth about $30 billion, so a 10 to 15 per cent stake would raise $3-5 billion dollars.
Goldman Sachs partners met over the weekend in a New York suburb to consider whether to do the offering.
"The executive committee of the Goldman Sachs Group, L.P. has unanimously decided to propose an initial public offering of the firm," the firm said in a statement.
"This follows a weekend meeting of the partners, who expressed overwhelming support for such a proposal. A detailed plan is expected to be presented for the partnership's consideration later this summer."
Going public would give Goldman Sachs the capital to finance acquisitions that would allow it to compete with rivals like Travelers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
The 190 partners now share the profits of the firm, putting them in an extremely lucrative position.
Founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman, the investment bank became Goldman Sachs in 1882 when Samuel Sachs became a partner. From its New York headquarters, the bank has a presence in 20 countries and employs more than 11,000 people.
The bank has a blue chip board and powerful Washington connections, boasting US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin as a former director and former vice-president and ambassador to Tokyo Walter Mondale as the firm's senior Japan adviser.
Goldman Sachs had a shift in its directorate two weeks ago, naming Henry Paulson as a co-chairman and co-chief executive officer with Jon Corzine. The US financial press has reported that Paulson was brought on board to prepare for the stock offering.
The public offering comes after a wave of major mergers in the US financial sector, including Citigroup, the behemoth that emerged from the April amalgamation of Citibank and Travelers.
Citigroup, which can offer products ranging from a basic bank account in Bakersfield, California to cover buying on Wall Street, set the new standard for financial companies and Goldman Sachs had to react to the pressure to compete.
