The second largest investment bank in the world in terms of revenue, Goldman Sachs held their second-ever Investors Day on February 28, 20203, Tuesday. The company had its first Investor Day in January 2020, almost three years earlier.
Through a well-organized Investor Day, Goldman Sachs gave insight into their operations and deals to their stakeholders and analysts. David Soloman, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, was also present.
David Soloman who took charge as the CEO in 2018 promised the growth of the firm, but Goldman Sachs also reported over $3 billion in terms of loss since 2020.
While the morale of the company was affected by different issues like losses from consumer lending, layoffs, and also a significant reduction in bonuses, the company still has investors who are completely confident in their operations and future.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the Goldman Sachs Investor Day 2023.
A Tasty Welcome
The Goldman Sachs Investor Day 2023 took place at the headquarters of Goldman Sachs located at 200 West Street, Manhattan New York.
The setting was all ready to accept guests even before 8 o’clock in the morning. Goldman Sachs made sure that the Investor Day of the company held after three years met that mark and was nothing short of extraordinary.
While usual conferences serve their guests with fruits, muffins, or teas and coffee, Goldman Sachs went a step further and welcomed their guests with a wide array of healthy and tasty snacks like avocado toasts, organic beet juice shots, Lola probiotic granola bars, egg bites with mushroom and so on.
The list does not stop there. Treats like a variety of fruit scones and zucchini bread along with sea salt, dark chocolate, and cinnamon cardamom ginger favored banner butter were also on the menu for the guests.
Even though there were such different items on the menu, the item that stole the show was the tater tots served in paper cups with angled rims.
David Soloman And His Words
The second Investors Day of Goldman Sachs revolved around the theme of ‘Focused on the Forward.’ The executives who talked to the investors and analyzed shared the measures that the company has planned for their future.
The guests were in for a series of presentations by the executive of the company, father for breakfast. As expected, the presentation session kicked off with the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon.
Solomon did not hold back during his presentation, and he was courageous enough to admit that the bank had made a few stumbles during recent years in its attempts to grow the business.
He told the audience that they could have done a better job in a much more substantive way. While he mentioned the success of the bank, like the $60 billion deposits business housed within Marcus, he also pointed to the fact that the bank had been over-ambitious.
David stated that the company lacked certain competitive advantages that they needed and that they tried to do too much too quickly, which seemed to have affected the bank in a negative way.
Goodbye Ties
The talk of the CEO David Solomon was followed by the COO of the company John Waldron. While Solomon talked about the stumbles that the company came across in recent years, Waldron explained the future financial strategies of the company.
While the things that Waldron was striking, his overall look without a tie was also striking to many. This was not the case back in 2020 when the company hosted its first Investors Day.
The majority of the company’s executives wore a tie during their presentations and afterward, but the style seemed to have changed completely. Almost all executives of the company, including CEO David Solomon, were seen without a tie.
New Names
The sessions after CEO David Solomon and COO John Waldron were followed by speakers like Kim Posnett, who is the global head of Goldman’s investment banking, and the co-head of global banking and markets, Dan Dees.
With the exception of David Solomon, each of the speakers took around 10 to 20 minutes on the floor. As for the CEO David Solomon, he took about 45 minutes in explaining his part about the operations of the company and also to answer the questions from the investors and analysts.
While looking at the names of speakers from the first Investors Day, it is easily noticeable that four speakers who took the stage on the 28th were not on the list of speakers for Investors Day in 2020.
Also, prominent personalities like Eric Lane and Stephen Scherr, who spoke on the first Investors Day, were seen holding a session at the conference as they have left the company since.
The Plans To Reduce Expenses
During the conference, the CFO of Goldman Sachs, Denis Coleman provided detailed insight into the ‘financial roadmap’ that the company has designed for cutting costs in the future.
In order to cut down on the cost, the company laid off almost 3,200 workers, who account for almost 6% of the company’s total workforce in recent months.
The bank also stated that they will be replacing fewer employees who leave the bank, but only through strategic hires and to replace critical roles in the bank’s functioning.
He also mentioned that one of the priorities of the bank was in getting the platform solutions division that includes Marcus to profitability.
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Coleman’s Steps For Growing Return On Equity
During his presentation, CFO Denis Coleman also explained the series of steps through which the company plans to grow its return on equity.
The steps include measures like growing management fees, reducing the alternative investment balance sheet, making platform solutions profitable, and finally improving the operation facilities.
Strategic Alternatives To Improve Consumer Efforts
The vision for the Goldman Sachs news division was shared by Stephanie Cohen on the second Investors Day for the company.
Platform Solutions Head of the company, Stephanie Cohen explained that the newest division of the bank planned to take its operations forward through measures that encompass transaction banking, consumer card partnerships, and point-of-sale lending. Choinen stated that the company will be flexible and nimble.
Later, when there were questions about the exact plans of the company for their consumer platform business, Solomon refused to give out the exact details but replied that they have narrowed their ambitions for consumer space and it was not able to give a starlight forward answer as it included lots of different ways.
Tough Q & A Session For David Solomon
David Solomon followed his presentation with a question and answer session. During the session he faced a lot of questions from investors and also from Wall Street analysts, some being quite tough.
While answering some of the questions, David Solomoj sounded and looked a bit defensive. While he answered almost all the questions by himself, he also directed slime at his colleagues like Dan Dees and Coleman, who were seated to his left during the session.
The Q&A Ended With A Stock Fall Of 3%
The start of Investors Day saw the stock of Goldman Sachs down by 1.6% but as the day progressed, the company seemed to lose more ground.
By the time David Solomon finished his Q&A session and the conference dispersed for lunch, the stock of the company was down by 3%.
As the day progressed further and came to an end, the stock was 3.8% down.
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