New York securities lawyer David Grais and Dallas-based Talcott Franklin have perfected plans to convince more than 50 large mortgage bond investors to fight banks.

Brazilian mining giant, Vale plans to invest in $15 billion  to 20 billion in projects in Africa over the next five years, up from $2.5 billion spent on projects there so far, the firm said.

Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s biggest bank, pays higher compensation for employees of its corporate and investment bank in the first nine months of 2010 than Goldman Sachs Group Inc said Bloomberg yesterday.

Deutsche Bank reserved enough money to pay 285,352 Euros ($394,499) to each of the 16,194 workers at the division, which includes transaction banking, company data show. That compares with personnel costs per employee of $370,706 at Goldman Sachs, where the figures include support staff and employees at units with pay that may be lower than in the investment bank. The firms didn’t provide more detailed information.

While average compensation at Deutsche Bank’s investment bank dropped 3.6 percent from the same period a year before, Goldman Sachs slashed the average worker’s pay 30 percent, Credit Suisse Group AG’s investment bank lowered it 27 percent, and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank cut it by 16 percent. Only UBS AG’s investment bank and Morgan Stanley increased the average amount of money they allocated per worker so far this year.

“The market continues to be very competitive and top talent has its value and its price and we cannot ignore that fact,” Deutsche Bank Chief Financial Officer Stefan Krause said on a conference call today.

Investment banks typically reserve a portion of revenue throughout the year to pay staff, granting the bulk of the awards in the form of year-end bonuses. Deutsche Bank set aside 4.62 billion euros for compensation expenses, up from 4.24 billion euros a year ago. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse cut the money they reserve to pay bankers and traders amid a business slowdown.

Deutsche Bank raised the compensation pool for corporate and investment banking employees by 9 percent from a year earlier as it added employees. Average pay compared with 296,037 euros for each of the 14,309 workers a year ago.

Goldman Sachs, which set a Wall Street pay record in 2007, put aside enough money in the first nine months of 2009 to pay $527,192 per employee at the time. The number of employees at the New York-based firm rose to 35,400 this year from 31,700 a year earlier.

Average compensation per worker doesn’t reflect the amount of money employees actually receive. Top executives and revenue producers sometimes receive multimillion-dollar awards, while clerical staff get much smaller salaries.

Deutsche Bank today reported a third-quarter loss that was smaller than estimated as higher profit at the investment bank cushioned a writedown on its Deutsche Postbank AG stake.

The Federal Reserve has asked bond dealers and investors for projections of central bank asset purchases over the next six months along with the likely effect on yields, as it seeks to gauge the possible impact of new efforts to spur growth.