Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the bank with the biggest trading profits on Wall Street, is losing market share underwriting corporate bonds as it seeks to boost its image as a company adviser rather than a $900 billion hedge fund.
The most profitable firm in Wall Street history has slipped to 10th in helping the world’s companies raise debt, down from ninth last year and as high as third place in 2003, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its share of this year’s $1.9 trillion in global offerings dipped to 3.7 per cent, from an average 4.8 per cent in the previous 10 years.
Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein is working to restore the New York-based firm’s reputation as an advocate for its customers after agreeing last month to pay a record fine to settle US allegations it misled clients over sales of a mortgage-linked security. Goldman Sachs’s 35,000 employees help governments finance schools and roads and provide advice and capital to companies “to invest in their growth,” Blankfein, 55, said before Congress in April.
“Goldman is struggling a little bit here,” said Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities in Lutz, Florida. “It has to overcome some pretty sizeable public relations issues, which are related to the way it does business and the products it creates. The company is good enough to overcome all of this stuff, but it would be hard for me to imagine that there’s no impact as a result of what we’ve seen over the last 12 to 18 months.”
Taking ‘a hit’
Blankfein has said the firm’s clients have stuck with it after agreeing to pay a $550 million fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with allegations that it misled investors in securities that bet on subprime mortgages. While not acknowledging or refuting improper conduct, Goldman Sachs said it made a “mistake” by failing to disclose a hedge fund that helped construct the investment was also planning to bet against it.
“Definitely Goldman Sachs’s reputation took a hit,” Blankfein said in a Bloomberg Television interview in May. “And that’s certainly reflected in people’s attitudes to the firm now. And that’s something that we have to work on.”
Goldman Sachs has retained its top spot in advising companies on mergers and acquisitions, with 165 deals this year and is second in equity offerings, with a 9.5 per cent market share of the $258 billion raised. Equity offerings amount to 13 per cent of the total raised through corporate bonds this year.
