Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon will whack 3% to five% of its workforce — together with scores of under-performing vice presidents — as a part of the Wall Road big’s annual spherical of layoffs, The Publish has discovered.
The layoffs would equate to greater than 1,395 job cuts from the financial institution’s international workforce of 46,500 on the finish of December. The final time the agency carried out an analogous evaluate in September, it made smaller reductions.
The financial institution’s total headcount will stay the identical as a result of it plans to carry new hires on board later this yr, insiders instructed The Publish.
“Like other banks, this is part of our normal, annual talent management process. We don’t comment on the specifics in any given year,” a Goldman spokesperson mentioned.
Those that are about to get the boot got both poor annual critiques final yr or smaller-than-expected bonuses this yr in a thinly-veiled suggestion for them to hunt employment elsewhere, in keeping with the Wall Road Journal, which first reported the cuts
A number of Goldmanites beforehand instructed The Publish that they believed their compensation had been pared again to spice up the financial institution’s backside line.
Solomon, who received a 26% pay hike final yr to rake in $39 million in compensation, has appeared to refocus Goldman’s enterprise on its conventional funding banking and asset administration actions after a blended foray into client banking.
He’s additionally having to rigorously navigate the agency’s transfer to rollback so-called variety, fairness, and inclusion insurance policies amid the specter of lawsuits from the Trump administration’s Division of Justice, as The Publish solely reported.
Final week, Goldman tapped Solomon’s long-time confidante, chief working officer John Waldron, to affix the financial institution’s board of administrators.
The transfer to raise the 55-year-old moneyman was seen on Wall Road as a part of Solomon’s succession planning.
Waldron’s 2024 compensation has not but been disclosed however each males have been handed “golden handcuffs” bonuses of $80 million that can totally vest in 2030.
The revelations got here in January after Goldman introduced that its earnings soared to $14 billion in 2024, in contrast with $8.5 billion a yr earlier.
Throughout that earnings name, Solomon, who took over from Lloyd Blankfein in 2018, hinted at potential cuts, saying there have been “significant opportunities to drive further efficiencies.”
Whereas the financial institution was buoyed by a profitable fourth quarter when it comes to deal-making, the Wall Road veteran warned that uncertainty remained over Trump’s immigration, commerce, and tax insurance policies.
Talking at an occasion in Sydney, Australia on Tuesday, Solomon mentioned the commander-in-chief’s tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico are designed “to level the playing field aggressively,”
The 63-year-old has presided over a year-long surge within the financial institution’s inventory value, rising from $392.25 a share final yr and peaking at 672.19 on Feb. 18.
Goldman inventory closed at 581.14 on Tuesday.
