Mega-bonuses are back on offer as Goldman racks up bumper fees

The Wall Street banking giant is set to report profits of £1.2 billion for the second quarter after it raked in bumper fees. This is likely to result in lavish payouts to staff at the end of the year including 5,500 in London and thousands more in New York.

Dozens of its highest-flying bankers could be in line for multi-million pound payouts.

Top earners in London are likely to include co-chief executives Michael Sherwood and Richard Gnodde, and head of investment banking in Europe Yoel Zaoui.

The return of the mega-bonus caused outrage among critics who claim excessive risk taking and lavish pay fuelled the banking crisis and plunged the global economy into deep recession.

It also came as MPs demanded that bankers should be hit with a punitive 90% tax on bonuses.

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: "This suggests that far too many people in the banking sector are going back to business as usual and appear to have learnt no lessons from the past."

It emerged today that Goldman executives sold almost £431 million worth of shares in the bank following the collapse of rival Lehman Brothers last September.

Most of the sales occurred during the period when Goldman was being propped up by $10 billion (£6.1 billion) of US government money through the troubled asset relief programme.

The sudden increase in selling among Goldman partners is likely to infuriate US politicians as it came after Washington had thrown Wall Street a lifeline.

Analysts reckon the bank's bonus pool could double to £12 billion this year if the trading performance continues.

Goldman insist all bonus payments are tied to the firm's performance and noted that it is only halfway through the year.

Rival banks such as Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays also look set to pay bumper bonuses this year.