WHEN Goldman Sachs Group went public 25 years ago in one of the biggest US initial public offerings (IPOs) up to that point, the poster child of Wall Street had been largely owned by partners for more than a century.
Since then, Goldman has gone through multiple changes – in CEOs, offices and more – though it remains one of the largest and most successful bastions of the industry. Goldman’s stock has been hitting new highs lately, closing at US$438.18 on Friday (May 3), up 14 per cent for the year and more than eight times the US$53 it sold shares at in May 1999. Its shares have outperformed rivals during its era as a public company, even if the bank has seen its share of twists and turns.
“Back then it was the dominant firm,” said Tim Ghriskey, who followed Goldman’s IPO as a senior portfolio manager at Dreyfus. “It was a partnership – they made aggressive bets and more often than not they were successful.”
It was not always smooth sailing for the firm. Goldman went public during a heyday for Wall Street amid the dot-com bubble. A decade later, shares tumbled as the confidence was rattled in the US financial system. Goldman was one of several banks that accepted government support in 2008 that helped stabilise the financial system. It also restructured itself into a bank holding company, as did chief rival Morgan Stanley.
The IPO, which hewed off a 15 per cent stake of the firm, helped make many people rich. Today, partners own a much smaller portion of Goldman shares. When the bank went public a quarter-century ago, it had less than 14,000 employees and net revenue of about US$13 billion. Its workforce now totals more than 44,000 people, who produced more than US$46 billion of net revenue in 2023.
“When I think about how much has changed since then, what’s remarkable is how much has stayed constant: our core values, our partnership ethos, and the calibre of our people,” chief executive officer David Solomon wrote about the anniversary.
GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Goldman’s recent advance has come alongside management’s decision to back away from consumer lending, which had been a key push under Solomon. Solomon is the third CEO since Goldman went public, following Lloyd Blankfein who handed over the reins in 2018. His predecessor, Henry Paulson, took the company public in 1999 and left to become US Treasury Secretary in 2006.
Goldman Sachs has been around since 1869, when an immigrant from Germany opened an office in lower Manhattan. These days, Goldman’s New York employees work in a modern building at 200 West Street in Manhattan that opened in 2009 and is a sharp contrast to the old, granite tower that was the bank’s headquarters at 85 Broad Street for decades before then.
“Goldman was the big 800-pound gorilla, partnership that decided to go public, so it was a big event,” said Evercore ISI analyst Glenn Schorr, who has been covering Wall Street banks for decades. Goldman’s first trading day, after being one of the last of its peers to go public, saw a 33 per cent pop.
The stock’s recent advance has a lot to do with the optimism about a rebound for capital markets activity, said the analyst.
“A lot of people would not bet against Goldman Sachs getting more than their fair share of this recovery that people think is about to happen in capital markets,” said Schorr. BLOOMBERG
