Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Goldman Sachs earns big

on investment in Henry Paulson

Remember this bit from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's bio from my rant on Sunday?

  • 1999 Paulson becomes CEO of Goldman Sachs
  • 2005 Goldman Sachs pays Paulson $37 million for the year
  • 2006 George W. Bush names Paulson to head the US Treasury

Well, it seems the struggling executives at Goldman Sachs made a wise investment 3 years ago.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In its first big move to raise capital, Goldman Sachs Group announced Tuesday that it will receive a $5 billion infusion from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, an investment that could also raise confidence in the venerable Wall Street firm. [More...]

Without the intervention of its former CEO, Goldman Sachs was destined to go the way of previous fallen titans of Wall Street. As it is, they stand to take advantage of the current crisis.

Wikipedia:

On September 21st, 2008, Goldman Sachs received Federal Reserve approval to transition from an investment bank to a bank holding company. [10]

On 22nd September 2008, The last two major investment banks in the United States, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, will become traditional bank holding companies, bringing an end to the era of investment banking on Wall Street. [11] The Federal Reserve's approval of their bid to become banks ends the ascendancy of the securities firms, 75 years after Congress separated them from deposit-taking lenders, and caps weeks of chaos that sent Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into bankruptcy and led to the rushed sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. [12]


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Goldman has produced a lot of CEOs in the financial world. Did you know that the NYSE is run by a former Goldman dude?

Thom said...

It's been a nice revolving door for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Gov. Jon Corzine (D) went from Goldman Sachs to the Senate.

Robert Rubin (who advises Obama) went from GS to the Clinton White House as an economic advisor and was eventually named Treasury Secretary.