Goldman Sachs

Andrew Hill Culture questions for Goldman’s Blankfein

March 14, 2012 1:05 pm by Andrew Hill

To misquote from the work of Hanns Johst, the Nazi playwright: “When I hear the words corporate culture, I reach for my pistol.”

Few other management themes encourage as much cant and hypocrisy from companies, and as much waffle from those who study them. Yet a healthy corporate culture is vital to the well-being of most organisations. I’d go further and say that given the complexity of the largest multinationals – and the impossibility that their chief executives know what is happening in every corner of the companies they purport to run – the right culture is indispensable.

This is why Wednesday’s New York Times op-ed, in which Goldman Sachs’ Greg Smith resigns in spectacular fashion as executive director and head of the firm’s US equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is so interesting and – for Goldman – so potentially damaging. Read more

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Posted in Banks, Business, Management |

John Gapper Goldman’s shareholders should not panic yet

August 24, 2011 12:37 am by John Gapper

The idea that Lloyd Blankfein could be convicted of a criminal offence over Goldman Sachs’ activities leading up to the 2008 financial crisis still seems far-fetched to me, although it clearly worries Goldman’s investors.

The fact that Goldman’s chairman and chief executive has hired a prominent defence lawyer to deal with a US Justice Department investigation into the bank led to its shares falling nearly 5 per cent on Monday.

The most plausible charge – although none has been brought – would be perjury over Mr Blankfein’s evidence to a Senate committee. Senator Carl Levin has accused Goldman executives of being misleading by denying they had “a big short” on mortgage-backed securities. Read more

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Posted in Business, Finance |

Andrew Hill Co-chiefs at Deutsche would be a fragile compromise

July 12, 2011 12:28 pm by Andrew Hill

Deutsche Bank’s procrastination over who should take over from Josef Ackermann as chief executive – and its readiness to consider co-chiefs to replace him – smacks of indecision, poor succession planning and compromise at the top. But could it work? Read more

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Posted in Banks, Management, Technology |

John Gapper Goldman could have avoided the prosecutor pile-on

June 6, 2011 4:22 pm by John Gapper

I’ve never played “dogpile” but I think Peter Henning is right to argue that Goldman Sachs has become the target for every US prosecutor to pile on top of, in the hope of finding a civil or criminal charge.

In a column last month I wrote that I doubted whether anything in the report, or in the evidence given by Goldman executives to the committee, amounted to criminal misconduct. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone differs with me on this.

But my sympathy with Goldman is limited since I argued before its problems blew up so dramatically that a business model based on “managing” conflicts of interest rather than avoiding them made it vulnerable. Read more

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Posted in Business, Finance |

John Gapper Goldman Sachs is not superhuman after all

July 20, 2010 6:28 pm by John Gapper

It is rare to hear the senior management of a company insisting so forthrightly that it has little control over its own destiny, but that was the message emerging from Goldman Sachs today.

David Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer, was at pains to hammer home this point on the investor conference call following its poor second quarter results:

“Our mix of business in not driven by management and the board . . . it is really driven by what our clients are demanding from us . . . It was very, very largely reduced client activity [that caused a sharp fall in revenues]“

Mr Viniar was trying to counter the suggestion that Goldman’s results were due to poor risk-taking or trading with its own capital. Instead, he wanted everyone to believe that Goldman’s fate was largely out of its hands, since it rises and falls on the financial tide. Read more

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Posted in Banks, Finance |

John Gapper Joe Cassano’s alternative history of 2008

June 30, 2010 8:24 pm by John Gapper

Joe Cassano has been invisible for so long – since the 2008 crisis, the former head of AIG’s now-notorious  financial products division has not given a media interview and is only rarely photographed – that it was a revelation to watch his appearance on Capitol Hill.

Mr Cassano’s mystique was such, and the expectations of him so low, that my first impression was that he was a good witness. His co-operative, friendly, somewhat geeky demeanour in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was unlike that of a brash master of the universe.

This helped him in his striking assertion that AIGFP, which made multi-billion dollar mark-to-market losses on its portfolio of credit default swaps and turned AIG into the dark heart of the financial crisis, did not make any mistakes in credit risk management. Read more

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Posted in Finance |

John Gapper Corporate culture is not just a matter of size

June 23, 2010 3:27 am by John Gapper

Luke Johnson has a great column in the FT – written from experience – on why large companies are more prone to infighting and less enjoyable places to work.

He writes: Read more

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Posted in Management |

John Gapper Goldman does not want to not admit to fraud

May 28, 2010 3:01 pm by John Gapper

Goldman Sachs‘ attempt to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Abacus case on a lesser charge than fraud, which I and Francesco Guerrera wrote about today, is a reminder of the peculiar way in which US civil securities cases are often resolved.

The standard settlement involves a defendant being fined by the SEC, and disciplined in individual cases, but “neither admitting nor denying” the allegations. The SEC thus gets a scalp and avoids a court case, while the defendant avoids a conviction. Read more

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Posted in Finance |
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