Goldman Sachs plans major merger of units: WSJ

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Wall Street Journal + Agencies
17 Oct 2022 14:01
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Goldman Sachs is apparently planning a major global restructuring that will split its largest businesses into three divisions, as per The Wall Street Journal.

Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (Archive)

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Goldman Sachs is planning a major reorganization in which its storied investment banking and trading businesses will be combined, while consumer banking will be absorbed by its wealth unit.

Goldman Sachs will combine asset management and wealth management into a single unit, as per a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed sources.

The unit, led by current global co-head of global markets Marc Nachmann, will also include Marcus, the consumer banking arm.

The move comes as the Wall Street titan seeks to diversify its revenue sources away from volatile trading and investment banking.

It would imply that CEO David Solomon's ambition to build a mass-market digital bank through consumer banking unit Marcus would be put on hold.

The plans, which are expected to be announced within days, will see Goldman Sachs restructure its largest businesses into three divisions, as per WSJ.

The company will combine its investment banking and trading businesses into one unit, while asset and wealth management will be combined into another, the report added.

Furthermore, a separate Bloomberg report stated that the combined investment banking and trading group will be led by Dan Dees and Jim Esposito, who are currently global co-heads of Goldman's investment banking, and Ashok Varadhan, who is now co-head of the firm's global markets division.

WSJ said that Marc Nachmann, the bank's global co-head of the global markets division, will join the combined asset- and wealth-management arm to help run it.

Such a bank organizational overhaul would come soon after the bank's global job cuts in September, which could have affected hundreds of bankers.

Marcus faces delays

Since his early days as CEO, Solomon had hoped to make significant inroads into retail banking. However, the consumer banking unit, which was launched in 2016, is still struggling and will be integrated into asset and wealth management.

Marcus has experienced some delays - it has yet to launch a checking account, which it previously stated would be available this year - and is reportedly burning cash.

According to Bloomberg, the bank internally forecasted that the unit's losses would exceed $1.2 billion by 2022, implying that cumulative losses would exceed $4 billion. Goldman did not respond.

Solomon has previously stated that the company could generate more than $4 billion in revenue by the end of 2024.

The consumer business serves more than 14 million customers and has more than $100 billion in deposits with more than $16 billion in card and loan balances, the bank stated.