Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Q: Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s compensation and benefits expense fell 5 percent to $15.4 billion in 2010 as the firm’s revenue decreased 13 percent and the number of employees climbed. 
  
 The amount, equal to 39 percent of revenue, is enough to pay each of the firm’s 35,700 employees $430,700, according to a statement today from the New York-based bank. That’s down 14 percent from an average of $498,246 for the firm’s 32,500 workers a year earlier. 
  
 After setting an all-time high for Wall Street pay in 2007, Goldman Sachs cut compensation costs to 36 percent of revenue in 2009, the lowest ratio ever, as it reported record earnings and U.S. banks faced pressure from regulators and lawmakers to rein in bonuses. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank cut average pay for employees 2.4 percent to $369,651 last year, the New York-based lender said last week. 
  
 “There are a lot of eyes on what they’re going to do from a compensation perspective,” said Jason Tyler, senior vice president of portfolio management at Chicago-based Ariel Investments LLC, on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop” with Betty Liu. “So the numbers are lighter than what they could have been.” 
  
 Charitable Giving 
  
 Investment banks set aside a portion of revenue throughout the year to pay employees and typically decide bonuses at the end of the year based on full-year results. Average compensation figures, derived by dividing the compensation pool by the number of employees, don’t represent any individual’s worker’s actual pay. Bonuses vary widely depending on an employee’s seniority, job title, and performance. 
  
 Goldman Sachs, led by Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, 56, is the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, and JPMorgan is the second largest. Goldman Sachs’s compensation figures don’t include costs tied to the U.K. bonus tax, for which the firm recorded a $465 million expense in 2010. In October, it said the cost would be $600 million. 
  
 Compensation was reduced to fund a $320 million charitable contribution to Goldman Sachs Gives, the bank said. The firm had a negative compensation expense of $519 million in the fourth quarter of 2009 as it cut pay to fund a $500 million contribution to the charity. 
  
 The following table compares compensation at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan’s investment bank. 
  
 Year through Dec. 2010 Goldman Sachs JPM Investment Bank Revenue $39.2 billion $26.2 billion Compensation $15.4 billion $9.73 billion Comp/Revenue Ratio 39 percent 37 percent Employees 35,700 26,314 Average Comp/Employee $430,700 $369,651 Year through Dec. 2009 Goldman Sachs JPM Investment Bank Revenue $45.2 billion $28.1 billion Compensation $16.2 billion $9.33 billion Comp/Revenue Ratio 36 percent 33 percent Employees 32,500 24,654 Average Comp/Employee $498,246 $378,600 T* To contact the reporters on this story: Michael J. Moore in New York at mmoore55@bloomberg.net; Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net. ||||| Bloomberg News 
  
 UPDATE 1/19/11: Goldman earnings are in, and they’re somewhat disappointing — by Goldman standards, at least. The stock price is slipping in pre-market trading. 
  
 *** 
  
 Goldman Sachs weighs in with earnings Wednesday morning, giving us a significant glimpse into the health of investment banking. 
  
 The average of analysts’ estimates is for net income of $3.76 a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Analysts expect revenues of $9 billion for the quarter. A year earlier, Goldman reported a profit of $8.20 a share and revenue of $9.1 billion. 
  
 Goldman shares ended the day Tuesday at $174.68 apiece, up about 6% in the past year. 
  
 Here are four key points to keep an eye on: 
  
 Compensation: Was 2010 a low-water mark for compensation at Goldman? Credit Agricole analyst Mike Mayo estimates Goldman paid out 40% of its net revenue in compensation last year, the second lowest level in the company’s history. (The record low was the financial crisis watershed of 2009, when Goldman’s employee compensation fell to 36% of revenue.) “Goldman must balance the need to pay its employees fairly based on their performance along with the public perception of its activities,” said Mayo in a report. 
  
 Weak trading: Though stock offerings, M&A activity and most other business lines spiked in the fourth quarter, analysts have spent much of the last month lowering their estimates for Goldman’s revenue from fixed income, currencies and commodities businesses, known as FICC. Deutsche Bank expects Goldman’s FICC trading to be down roughly 15% from the third quarter, while equity trading revenue is expected to be 5% higher. 
  
 New Disclosures: As a result of an eight month review of its business operations after a tussle with the SEC, Goldman changed the way it reports earnings. Goldman will now break out revenue it makes from its own trading and investing accounts separately from revenue from its trading on clients’ behalf. Will this give its rivals an unfair peek under Goldman’s hood? 
  
 Dividends: Yes, it’s an obsession among investors in financial firms. The Federal Reserve is set to disclose in March the results of a stress test, that will determine which banks can resume or boost cash returns to shareholders “We expect GS to be one of the first firms to move on this front (weighted toward reinvesting and buybacks versus special dividends/etc.), while we expect it to take more time for MS,” Deutsche Bank said a report. 
  
 Wildcard bonus–Facebook: Will Goldman be pressed to explain its $1.5 billion private offering of Facebook stock? Goldman restricted the deal to foreign investors amid regulatory scrutiny. ||||| Goldman Sachs, the mightiest of the world's investment banks, will reveal a new round of bumper bonus payouts this morning that is expected to average at around $450,000 (£280,000) per person, demonstrating that another year of public fury at bankers' pay has failed to change behaviour on Wall Street and in the City of London. 
  
 The bank is likely to confirm that its latest annual bill for pay, perks and end-of-year bonuses is around £10bn. 
  
 Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have watched impotently as banks continue to pay out giant bonuses, in some cases returning close to the levels seen before the market meltdown of 2008 and the government bailouts that kept the financial system running. 
  
 At Goldman, the peak year for bonuses was in 2007, when the average pay for its global workforce reached $661,490. Now, despite extensive Wall Street reform designed to restrain the excesses that led to the credit crisis, Goldman and others are again posting near-record profits, and handing staff a large slice of the proceeds. 
  
 The announcement of Goldman's annual figures for 2010 will be the centrepiece of the earnings season, and the most important measure of the health of the financial sector, because the bank dominates trading and has become a lightning rod for public and political concern over Wall Street practices. 
  
 Last year, in a move aimed at heading off some criticism, it unexpectedly pulled money out of the bonus pool for staff in the final months of the year, keeping average bonuses below the psychologically important level of $500,000 (£313,000). No one is expecting a similar gesture this year, as competition for staff has hotted up on Wall Street. 
  
 After the first nine months of 2010, Goldman had put £8.2bn aside for pay and bonuses. Analysts are expecting the final amount to come in only modestly below the previous year's total of £10bn. Goldman bankers, on average, earn more than 10 times the national average income in either the UK or the US. The continuing high level of bonuses comes despite recent declines in trading activity on Wall Street, which has meant that few banks are expected to post record results. 
  
 Goldman has had to fight to repair the damage done to its reputation by political attacks, public anger over bonuses, and fraud charges that were laid against it last year relating to its conduct in the mortgage market before the credit crisis. 
  
 To the wider public, the bank has become viewed as "a giant vampire squid, wrapped round the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" – in the memorable phrase of the Rolling Stone magazine journalist Matt Taibbi. And on Wall Street, the company's clients have begun to believe that Goldman cares more about making a short-term profit on its own investments than it does on helping them do business, according to the results of secret research commissioned by the bank. 
  
 Last week, Goldman published a 63-page report promising to overhaul its internal procedures and improve ethics. It proposed "increasing emphasis on evaluation criteria relating to reputational risk management in the firm's annual performance review and compensation and other incentive and recognition processes" – in other words, to tie bonuses more clearly to ethical practices. 
  
 This morning's results from Goldman, which has promised greater transparency, will also be notable because they will be the first to include specific details about how much money the bank makes from trading its own money, as opposed to working on behalf of clients. 
  
 Bank forced to pull $1.5bn Facebook share offer 
  
 Goldman Sachs has had to exclude US-based investors from a special $1.5bn (£930m) investment opportunity in Facebook. 
  
 It was reported earlier this month that the bank was looking to raise $1.5bn for Facebook through an exclusive share offer, known as a private placement, for the bank's top clients. In a statement, the investment bank said that "intense media coverage" had prompted its decision to pull the offer from US clients. 
  
 The "special purpose vehicle" set up by Goldman Sachs had been seen as a way to circumnavigate rules set out by the United States' Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that if a private firm has more than 500 shareholders, it is required to register and file public statements. 
  
 The Goldman statement said: "We regret the consequences of this decision, but Goldman Sachs believes this is the most prudent path to take." The move is a blow to Facebook and an embarrassment to Goldman, which had reportedly received orders totalling $7bn for the $1.5bn it was hoping to sell. 
  
 Tom Peck |||||
A:
Goldman Sachs employees will receive lower-than-expected average pay of $430,700 this year, 14% less than last year’s average of $498,246, Bloomberg reports. Estimates prior to the release of the numbers pinned the figure around $450,000, according to the Independent. The bank’s compensation and benefits expense, which equals 39% of 2010 revenue, was $15.4 billion in 2010: 5% lower than the year prior and also lower than the Independent’s $16 billion estimate. Revenue also decreased 13%, and the Wall Street Journal notes that the stock price is slipping in pre-market trading. One analyst notes that 2010 compensation marks the second-lowest level in Goldman’s history; its lowest level ever, 36% of revenue, was in 2009—which was just two years after compensation hit an all-time high for Wall Street. Though this year’s figure still sounds high, the analyst notes that “Goldman must balance the need to pay its employees fairly based on their performance along with the public perception of its activities.”