Even when your annual bonus runs to $8 million or $10 million (£5.7£7 million), it is hard to say no to a one-off $200 million windfall. But that sum could await each of the senior partners at the investment banking giant, Goldman Sachs, if they say yes to flotation.

As the 190 partners of what is arguably the most prestigious of Wall Street's mighty investment banks, prepare for a crucial meeting at the end of next week, they are closer to embracing the market than ever before.

Among them is the former Attorney General, EU Commissioner and head of the World Trade Organisation, Mr Peter Sutherland, who is currently chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International and one of the most senior partners.

It will be the seventh time since 1970 that ending the 130-year-old partnership founded by the Bavarian emigre, Marcus Goldman, has been considered.

But, following meetings to discuss the ramifications of such an elite, secret and self-regarding organisation opening itself to the public scrutiny inherent in a stock market flotation, opposition appears to be on the sideline.

It will, however, have to be almost totally silenced by the June 12th annual meeting if proposals to change the structure are to succeed.

Only two years ago, chairman and chief executive, Mr Jon Corzine, called a halt to discussions before a vote could be taken because deep and potentially damaging divisions between senior partners began to emerge.

Although Mr Corzine is now seeing the benefits of flotation, others among the very top echelons at the firm are nursing doubts.

Times have changed, however, since disbanding the partnership was last considered. Possibly the most persuasive factor has been the huge rise in share prices on the New York market which would be likely to confer a value of something around $25 billion on the organisation. It is understood that several of the bank's most respected economists and market strategists believe that conditions will never be better.

While many still argue that Goldman can continue to hold its own in the increasingly fierce battle raging among Wall Street's finest, a growing number of insiders worry that Goldman will increasingly slip behind close rival, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, unless it has a heavily endowed war chest. Takeovers are now so large that the partners can no longer simply club together and dip into their reinvested bonuses to fund deals.

The bank, too, has come under pressure to spread its legendary riches more widely among the staff. A Goldman Sachs partnership is still the stuff of Harvard MBA graduate dreams, but those who have yet to reach those dazzling heights are increasingly demanding some reward for not walking out every time a rival's headhunter phones up. Only 18 months ago, Goldman introduced a new type of pseudo-partnership

managing directors designed to keep its thrusting young aspirants happy.

That rethink partly recognised the growing importance and status of Goldman's overseas operations, the first of which was set up in London only 28 years ago.

Despite the bank's damaging involvement in the Maxwell scandal in the early 1990s, Goldman's British operation has regained its former prestige. And the decision to appoint Mr Hank Paulson, the chief operating officer, as co-chief executive and co-chairman to run the business alongside Mr Corzine has been interpreted as a sign the investment bank knows how it will restructure the partnership to cope with stock market rigours.

There are, however, risks for Goldman in going public. One is that in an era of such massive and rapid consolidation among financial services companies, Goldman Sachs could fast become one of the most glittering targets for predators.

That is why Goldman Sachs is believed to be ready to shun the chance to enter the record books as possibly the biggest initial public offering ever seen on Wall Street in favour of selling only a minority of shares. That will give the bank access to shareholders' money selling just a quarter of the equity would swell its coffers by more than $6.25 billion but will keep the sharks at bay.