Soft Commissions

See: Soft Dollars.

Money managers trade big blocks of stocks (and bonds) and pay big blocks of commissions on those trades. But they don't always pay in cash. In fact, a whole "barter" system has evolved, wherein a semi-scrupulous money manager might say to a brokerage, "Hey, I have 10 million shares of MSFT I want to sell; you'd normally get a 3-cent-a-share commish, but in this case, I don't want to write you a check for 300 grand; instead, I want 'free' rent in your semi-empty office building for 2 years, which has a market rate of about 300 grand. Deal?"

Softly paid. Not in cash.