What is Goldman Sachs?
It’s a question that chief executive David Solomon has fielded more often than usual in the last 12 months, not least because late-2020 vintage Goldman is starting to look subtly different from the firm of even a few years before.
But he also has a fairly simple answer: Goldman Sachs is a bank. Gone are the days of differentiation between investment banks and other banks, he argues. In today’s world, he told the audience at a Credit Suisse conference back in February, “there are just banks.”
Goldman is certainly starting to look more like a bank. And even the staff of its storied mergers and acquisitions franchise are buying into that identity.
Take transaction banking, a business that featured prominently at Goldman’s first-ever investor day in January. Goldman has fairly moderate ambitions for this franchise, which it launched internally in 2019 before rolling it out to clients.
