GS - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
| Previous close | 202.42 |
| Open | 200.81 |
| Bid | 195.63 x 800 |
| Ask | 196.19 x 900 |
| Day's range | 195.19 - 201.88 |
| 52-week range | 151.70 - 245.08 |
| Volume | 2,201,526 |
| Avg. volume | 2,255,788 |
| Market cap | 70.546B |
| Beta (3Y monthly) | 1.31 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 8.22 |
| EPS (TTM) | 23.86 |
| Earnings date | 15 Oct 2019 |
| Forward dividend & yield | 5.00 (2.47%) |
| Ex-dividend date | 2019-08-29 |
| 1y target est | 237.82 |
- Bloomberg
Treasury 10-Year Yields Sink to 3-Year Low, Haven Assets Rally
(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Haven assets reigned as traders returned to their desks Monday after an action-packed weekend that saw tensions between the U.S. and China ratchet up again.Treasury 10-year yields dropped below 1.5% to their lowest since Aug. 2016, while the yen rallied as investors ramped up their bid for safety amid concerns that a bruising trade war will hamper global growth. The Turkish lira led a decline among emerging-market currencies.With the trade rift growing, investors have lifted bets on three more rate cuts in 2019 by the Federal Reserve. Chairman Jerome Powell’s warning at Jackson Hole Friday that the U.S. economy faces “significant risks” was quickly met with an exchange of more tariffs between the U.S. and China.“Escalation of the trade war could extend the bond rally further, with increased probability that U.S. 10s revisit all-time yield lows set in 2016,” - at 1.318%, wrote a team of strategists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. including Praveen Korapaty. “Cross-border flows into U.S. dollar fixed income, driven by a surge in negative yielding debt, may not moderate without broad improvement in data.”U.S. equity futures fell as much as 1.6%, while stock markets in Tokyo, Australia and South Korea all opened lower on Monday. The yen advanced against all major currencies, climbing as much as 0.9% to 104.46, while bonds in Australia and New Zealand rallied. Treasury 10-year yields dropped as much as 7 basis points to 1.4695%.“Speculators will continue to push up bids for the yen,” said Yukio Ishizuki, senior currency strategist at Daiwa Securities Co. in Tokyo. “Japan’s authorities are likely to take a wait-and-see stance for now, but a rally above 100 per dollar could see some response”The Kiwi and the Aussie dollars dropped 1% as the Asian trading day got going on Monday. Meanwhile, the Turkish lira suddenly plunged as much as 12% against the yen in a flash crash, spurring speculation that Japanese retail investors were unwinding long positions.“The market now expects the trade tensions to unleash an even bigger deflationary force and growth hit than it did before last week,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. “Haven currencies, like the yen and Swiss franc, will be in demand and those tied to growth -- including the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollar -- will be under pressure.”Leave ChinaWhile U.S. President Donald Trump’s additional tariffs fell short of speculation for a stronger response, such as currency intervention, he has threatened to force American companies to leave China.Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on “Fox News Sunday” from the Group of Seven meeting in Biarritz, France, said Trump would have the ability under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, if he declared an emergency. White House economic director Larry Kudlow agreed, in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” but said “there’s nothing right now in the cards” to do so.“The trade war between the U.S. and China is now escalating at a bewildering pace, which is likely to trigger further market volatility and expectations of ever more aggressive monetary easing from the Federal Reserve,” said Patrick Wacker, a fund manager for emerging-market fixed income at UOB Asset Management Ltd. in Singapore. “The yuan will keep falling towards the bottom of its new near-term range of 7.05-7.25 against the dollar.”Trump’s piling on more criticism of Powell on Friday, coupled with his call to U.S. companies operating in China to consider leaving, pummeled markets going into the weekend. This backdrop also sent a key slice of the yield curve, which is closely watched as a gauge of an impending recession, further into inversion as traders’ viewed the growth outlook as more dire and ramp up bets the Fed cuts.The gap between three-month rates and yields on 10-year Treasury notes fell Monday to a low of minus 51 basis points, the most inverted since March 2007.“The market expects substantial rate cuts but the Fed isn’t moving along that line,” said Naokazu Koshimizu, senior rates strategist at Nomura Securities Co. in Tokyo. “Short-dated yields are struggling to fall even amid concern over a deterioration in the U.S. economy, leaving the yield curve prone to inversion.”There is roughly a $16 trillion pool of global debt with sub-zero rates. Treasuries have gained 8.4%, leaving them on track for their best annual performance since 2011, according to the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Treasury Index.A dive in the greenback Friday also sparked renewed speculation the U.S. may intervene to weaken the currency.The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index sank 0.35% on Friday.Adding to the nervousness was a Group of Seven gathering in Biarritz, France, at which French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to anger the U.S. by seeking to put climate change at the top of the agenda.On Sunday, possible signs that Trump may be regretting being aggressive on China at the G-7 gathering soon abated when the White House said media misinterpreted his initial remarks. That confusion will only add more uncertainty to the outlook, some analysts predicted.White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said that Trump doesn’t regret starting a trade war but he does have second thoughts on whether he should have hit the Chinese even harder.Trump’s comment followed by the reversal only “adds more uncertainty to markets, which increases the odds of a U.S. recession,” said Andrew Brenner, the head of international fixed-income at Natalliance Securities in New York.(Updates with Treasuries in second paragraph, analyst comment in 14th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Filipe Pacheco.To contact the reporters on this story: Netty Ismail in Dubai at nismail3@bloomberg.net;Liz Capo McCormick in New York at emccormick7@bloomberg.net;Masaki Kondo in Singapore at mkondo3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jenny Paris at jparis20@bloomberg.net, ;Dana El Baltaji at delbaltaji@bloomberg.net, Tan Hwee Ann, Cormac MullenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
3 Top Bank Stocks to Buy Right Now
The falling-rate environment has produced some tempting bargains.
- Yahoo Finance
David Koch, dead at 79, was part of one of America's 'most important companies'
Billionaire David Koch died on Friday at the age of 79, leaving behind a complicated legacy.
- Zacks
Goldman (GS) to Buy Majority Stake in China Joint Venture
Goldman (GS) might acquire a majority stake of 51% holding in its Chinese investment banking joint venture, Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Co.
- Zacks
Goldman Sachs Plans to Automate Trading by Hiring 100 Coders
Goldman Sachs' (GS) investment in technology is expected to boost revenues by increasing the number of trades it can complete.
- Bloomberg
Investors Hoard Most Gold in ETFs in Six Years
(Bloomberg) -- Gold’s faring extremely well as a haven asset, with inflows into exchange-traded funds hitting 1,000 tons since holdings bottomed in early 2016 after a prolonged unwind in the wake of the global financial crisis.Total known ETF holdings expanded to 2,424.9 tons on Wednesday, the highest since 2013, following inflows over the past three years and a continued build-up in 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Current assets are about 1,000 tons higher than the post financial crisis nadir of 1,425.1 tons.Gold has surged this year as investors seek protection from slowing global growth, the incessant trade war, and turmoil in the bond market that suggests the U.S. may be headed for another recession. The rise has been aided by a rate cut from the Federal Reserve and expectations more will soon follow. This week, veteran investor Mark Mobius gave a blanket endorsement to buying bullion, saying accumulating the precious metal will reap long-term rewards.Others are also bullish. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has said prices will climb to $1,600 an ounce over the next six months. The bank’s global head of commodities research, Jeffrey Currie, said that gains are likely be fueled by demand for ETFs as well as increased central-bank purchases. Spot gold traded at about $1,500 on Thursday, up 17% this year.(Updates with price in final paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Ranjeetha Pakiam in Singapore at rpakiam@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Phoebe Sedgman at psedgman2@bloomberg.net, Jake Lloyd-Smith, James PooleFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Markets Should Be Worried About the Music Stopping
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Several factors are roiling world markets right now, from fears of a possible U.S. recession to erratic policymaking, trade tensions and general uncertainty. But the unusual size of the moves -- regularly on the order of 1% to 3% -- is being heightened by something else: the struggle to find someone with whom to trade. The decline in trading liquidity is evident in several metrics. Volumes have declined. Since 2007, average daily trading in U.S. Treasury bonds (measured as a percentage of market size) has fallen by over 60%. Trading in traditionally less liquid corporate and high-yield bonds has shrunk by similar amounts. The number of small trades (under $1 million) has grown, suggesting a lack of partners for larger deals.Over the same period, U.S. equity market turnover has also shrunk. The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates that in 2018, by some measures, single-stock liquidity fell 30% to 40%. Other telling indications include significant intra-day moves, frequent price spikes, higher volatility of bid-offer spreads and the proliferation of flash crashes such as the sharp increase in the Cboe Volatility Index or VIX at the end of 2018 and the Japanese yen flash in January 2019.Structural changes are driving this trend. For a variety of reasons, traditional market-makers such as banks and dealers have become less active; bank trading assets have fallen from 40% of total assets in 2008 to half that figure. Regulatory changes have made trading more capital-intensive. Meanwhile, industry consolidation has reduced the number of participants. The trading inventory of government and especially corporate debt has fallen.Trading liquidity has instead become dependent on different kinds of investors. Algorithmic traders now make up around 50% of U.S. equity trading. Other providers range from pension fund and insurance companies to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds or ETFs, hedge funds and private investors. This increased role for investors may be problematic. Investment funds and algorithmic traders are not natural providers of liquidity. They channel investor money. Unlike banks, they do not have permanent capital to risk in providing liquidity or warehousing positions. Traditional market makers, such as banks, can buy or sell based on assessed true value, building inventory and waiting for market fluctuations to subside. In part, this is made possible by the greater stability of their funding and capital base.By contrast, funds are limited in their ability to make markets by adjusting prices. Their ability to buy and sell is dependent on the flows of investible funds. Large inflows necessitate buying, as most fund have limits on how much money they can keep in cash. At the same time, since most funds offer investors the chance to withdraw their money on short notice, redemptions obligate funds to sell. Where investors are leveraged, the need to meet margin calls restricts liquidity and trading activity. This further limits the ability of investors to provide market liquidity just when it’s most needed.Other investors are constrained by mandates and investment rules. ETFs, which are now a major influence, must adjust holdings to reflect the underlying benchmark, irrespective of value or price considerations. Algorithmic traders compete with central and commercial banks in chasing safe and highly liquid assets. Perversely, this diminishes liquidity for those assets. Diminished trading liquidity has several implications for investors. Their ability to trade is increasing fragile. Volumes can evaporate quickly when volatility rises, as investors turn from buyers to sellers and algorithmic traders withdraw. In effect, providers of liquidity then become users, destabilizing markets. Price discovery, which underlies all trading and valuations, becomes unreliable. The different focus of investors in the current cycle complicates matters. Investors searching for return have invested in riskier, less liquid assets. As investors in Argentina have discovered, a quick exit is sometimes impossible in emerging markets.There’s also heightened risk of investors being unable to exit “gated” funds where redemptions are suspended. The three largest U.K. property funds froze over $12 billion in assets in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. More recently, the Swiss fund manager GAM Holding AG and iconic U.K. investor Neil Woodford have blocked redemptions. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has warned that investment funds that promise to allow customers to withdraw their money on a daily basis are "built on a lie."There are broader implications. Illiquidity may precipitate fire sales and large asset price moves, resulting in sudden and sharp tightening in financial conditions.In 2007, then-Citigroup Inc. head Chuck Prince made an ill-fated comparison to investing as a game of musical chairs: You kept dancing while the music played. The problem, as traders are rediscovering, is finding a chair when the music stops. Investors are underestimating and under-pricing the risks diminished market liquidity could pose in the next downturn. (Corrects to delete reference to H2O Asset Management LLP as a “gated” fund in thirteenth paragraph. )To contact the author of this story: Satyajit Das at sdassydney@gmail.comTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Satyajit Das is a former banker and the author, most recently, of "A Banquet of Consequences."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
King of the Hills Reshaping Tokyo With $5.4 Billion Development
(Bloomberg) -- Tokyo is about to get another mound of capitalism.Mori Building Co. is spending 580 billion yen ($5.4 billion) on a new, 20-acre hub of commerce in the city’s core. Similar in size to New York’s Rockefeller Center, the complex will have shops, restaurants, 213,900 square meters of office space, 1,400 residences, a world-class hotel, an international school and the city’s biggest food court.If this capital of 14 million has a king of the hills, it’s the Mori real-estate empire. The new project will eclipse the builder’s signature development, Roppongi Hills — home to Google and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. offices, and a magnet for shoppers and international visitors. The closely held company, whose late founder was once the country’s richest man, is betting that more people — especially foreigners — will flock to live and work in Tokyo over the coming years.“Japan’s office market is behind in relative size and depth,” Mari Kumagai, head of research at Colliers International Group Inc. “If you’re serious about making money from buildings, you have to do this.”Set to open in 2023, the new endeavor doesn’t yet have a name. For now, it’s called the Toranomon-Azabudai project, from the neighborhoods Mori will gobble up in Minato-ku, one of Tokyo’s toniest enclaves. Starting with the 1986 debut of nearby Ark Hills, the real-estate developer has been relentless in its push to transform Tokyo’s skyline with hefty buildings clad in steel and glass.Mori’s properties often cater to foreign businesses and visitors, offering sanctuaries for them to stay, work and shop in a megalopolis that can be difficult to navigate. Signage and restaurant menus in the city still often lack English or other languages. Green spaces are still few and far between, and the view from the 52nd floor of Roppongi Hills betrays a sea of drab, gray low-rise homes and buildings that stretch to the horizon.“This is going to become Tokyo’s newest landmark,” said Shingo Tsuji, Mori’s chief executive officer. “We’ve spent 30 years thinking about this project, and how cities should be created.”Mori’s goal is to create a city within a city that people can “escape to, rather than flee from.” Ground broke this month on the big new project, which will connect two subway stations and create a new arterial road to relieve the development’s impact on vehicle traffic. Although the total footprint will be smaller than its predecessor, the new complex will have more floor space, with a 64-story main tower and two residential towers.When Mori embarked on its Roppongi project almost two decades ago, developers were jumping over each other to put up new buildings in Tokyo. Land prices were down 75% after Japan’s economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, interest rates were on their way to zero and new zoning laws made it easier to combine lots for big projects.That bet may have paid off. But now, Mori’s new project is being built under a different scenario, coming after a long run-up in office space demand. Tokyo’s real-estate market is thriving, with vacancy rates near record lows below 3%, according to Colliers, the real-estate investment and services firm.The big question is whether that trend will continue, as well as Mori’s ability to keep riding the wave of mega projects. Although rental growth has been robust, Colliers predicts it will peak at around the current 5% before easing to an average of 0.8% over the next few years. All told, central Tokyo will have 70 major real-estate projects breaking ground from 2018 through 2023, according to the firm.“The office market is doing really well, vacancies are coming down,” said Patrick Wong, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “The issue is whether rents can keep going up further.”Tokyo isn’t the only frothy real-estate market in the region. Singapore and Sydney are also seeing low office-leasing vacancies as companies hire more people. Last month, the government of Singapore clamped down on speculative buying and selling, with the central bank citing “euphoria” in the property market.At the same time, protests in Hong Kong have put the brakes on demand for central office space in China’s special administrative region. Spooked investors are turning elsewhere to places such as Singapore, which saw private home sales surge a sequential 43.5% in July. Although no multinational corporations have said they’re leaving Hong Kong, it’s probably on their mind, according to Wong. “This could be an opportunity for Tokyo,” he said.That’s music to the ears of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who in 2014 pushed to establish new strategic special zones in Tokyo and other cities as part of his Abenomics revitalization plan. The areas of Tokyo that fall under those zones, which offer deregulation and other incentives, are right where Mori has been developing properties for decades.No surprise, then, that the Toranomon-Azabudai mega project has been 30 years in the making. Work on it started even before Roppongi Hills. For its major projects, Mori’s employees spend years going door to door, persuading local residents and property owners to hand over their land in exchange for prime residential space in the new buildings.It’s hardly a coincidence that Mori’s suffix for its biggest developments — there’s also Toranomon Hills and Atago Green Hills — harks back to that other chichi neighborhood, Beverly Hills. It’s also a nod to the Japanese word, Yamanote. Transliterated as “the hill’s hand,” the term refers to the more desirable, hilly land west of the Imperial Palace in feudal Tokyo that now include Mori’s properties.“We’ve poured everything we’ve learned from our Hills projects into this new development,” Tsuji said.Mori’s ultimate vision is to link up all of its properties into an uber-complex of offices, homes and retail space. Although the developer is going to unveil the project’s name just before it opens for business, odds favor it will end with “Hills.”(Updates with analyst’s comment in fourth paragraph. A previous version of this story corrected the timeframe of projects.)\--With assistance from Hiromi Horie.To contact the reporter on this story: Reed Stevenson in Tokyo at rstevenson15@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Emma O'Brien at eobrien6@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson, Jeff SutherlandFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Goldman Sachs (GS) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, Goldman Sachs (GS) closed at $200.67, marking a +0.35% move from the previous day.
- Bloomberg
Goldman Warns Hedge Fund Outperformance Holds Crowding Risk
(Bloomberg) -- Equity hedge funds are enjoying their strongest performance since 2009 -- with the S&P 500 index up 16% this year -- but Goldman Sachs Group Inc. warns that crowding is a risk.Funds have benefited from both a rising stock market and successful stock selection, strategists including Ben Snider and David Kostin wrote in a note Aug. 20. They’ve also concentrated their holdings into a reduced number of industries, such as health care, and into single names, particularly Amazon.com. Inc. When rallies peak, too much professional money can try to get out of the same stocks simultaneously and exaggerate declines.“Funds continue to lift portfolio weights in their top positions, which are increasingly also the top positions of other funds,” the strategists wrote. “These dynamics, along with higher leverage, lower portfolio turnover, and declining market liquidity, have boosted the performance of momentum stocks while also increasing the risk funds face from crowding.”They added that this will “make funds particularly vulnerable to a potential market unwind, particularly if accompanied by the decline in liquidity that typically coincides with falling risk appetite.”Investment banks from Goldman to Morgan Stanley increasingly study the relative positioning of funds that compete with each other to beat benchmarks. The crowding issue is in focus this month, as August has seen a spike in stock and bond markets volatility. Hedge funds rushed for safety last quarter as Treasuries rallied and concerns about economic slowdown flared, regulatory filings compiled as of last week showed.Goldman found the most popular long positions had lagged the S&P 500. The favorite short positions trailed by even more. Overall, the average equity fund return in 2019 has been 9%.Alongside the success comes some concern as well, after examining the holdings of 835 hedge funds with $2.1 trillion of gross equity positions at the start of the third quarter.Goldman found a rotation continued from technology into health care, which is now the sector with the largest overweight versus the Russell 3000 Index, which like the S&P 500, is also up 16% this year. Overweights in health care and industrials are at a 10-year high, the report said. Funds trimmed positions in semiconductors and “other stocks exposed to U.S.-China trade conflict,” according to the strategists.Also, late June and July saw a sharp rise in exposures as the Federal Reserve began to cut rates and U.S.-China trade relations appeared to thaw, the strategists said. But leverage has been trimmed again in August. While the S&P 500 rose in June and July, it’s down 1.8% so far this month. Amazon.com appeared most frequently among the 10 largest holdings of funds, followed by Facebook Inc. New names on the list of the top 50 such stocks include Allergan Plc and Micron Technology Inc.(Adds S&P 500 performance in recent months in penultimate paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Joanna Ossinger in Singapore at jossinger@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net, ;Samuel Potter at spotter33@bloomberg.net, Todd White, John ViljoenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
5 Things You Should Know About Apple's New Credit Card
Here are the details about Apple's newest services play.
- Bloomberg
Goldman Plans Hiring Spree in Trading (Only Coders Need Apply)
(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s trading division is planning its biggest hiring spree in years. The catch? The entire effort is focused on coders, a sign of where Wall Street is headed.The firm is looking to add more than 100 engineers for tech-related roles on the trading floor in the coming months, according to Adam Korn, co-head of engineering in the trading division. Goldman plans to raid its rivals in the tech and finance industries, with most of the new positions to be based in New York and London.“You are going to see us very actively in the marketplace going after this kind of talent,” Korn said. “Historically, engineers were not seen as a part of the business. That’s obviously changed.”The firm is focused on adding people who can respond to the demands of trading partners seeking to automate, Korn said.Wall Street has been in a state of upheaval for the past decade, especially involving traders who sit in between buyers and sellers of stocks and bonds. Rapid advancements in technology have fundamentally altered the way that business gets done, enabling firms to cut staff as automation takes over. Banks are responding by allocating more resources to technology.The firm’s new management under Chief Executive Officer David Solomon approved the plan earlier this year.“We walked in there with our ‘Shark Tank’-esque plan,” Korn said. “The leadership group was excited and interested and the firm is putting money where its mouth is.”Marquee HiresThe hires at Goldman will help continue the build-out of Marquee, a trading and risk-management platform that the firm hopes will translate into a meaningful business line in its trading division.Goldman has also been overhauling its electronic-trading platform to serve large quant hedge funds, with an eye toward using advancements in trading tools that could then be deployed across a larger set of business partners. Reducing trading time, processing more requests and spitting out faster responses to queries would help generate more trades and more business.Raj Mahajan, a partner at the firm, has been a key part of the initiative, helping build out the technology backing the equity-trading operations. He was recently elevated to a new role that will make him responsible for all quant client needs.The effort has been making some inroads, with the firm last quarter scooping up more than $2 billion in quarterly revenue from equities trading and narrowing the gap with Morgan Stanley, which has held the mantle of Wall Street’s top equities-trading shop in recent years.That didn’t go unnoticed.“We’ve done over $2 billion a quarter, the first and second quarters, for a while now,” Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Pruzan said after the firm released second-quarter results. “A competitor did this for the first time in a long time.”To contact the reporter on this story: Sridhar Natarajan in New York at snatarajan15@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Steve Dickson, Daniel TaubFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Warren Buffett is Buying More Bank Stocks: Should You Too?
Despite a challenging backdrop, Warren Buffett is adding bank stocks to his investment portfolio. Thus, investing in banks with strong fundamentals and prospects seem to be a wise decision.
- Zacks
Banks Get Respite as Regulators Okay Volcker-Rule Tailoring
Banks likely to get some respite soon, with the U.S. regulators showing the green light for easing of the Volcker Rule under the Trump administration.
- Reuters - UK Focus
Tottenham Hotspur plans to refinance stadium debt -source
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club plans to refinance about 400 million pounds ($485 million) of its stadium debt through bonds issued via a private placement arranged by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), according to a source familiar with the matter. The holding company of the English soccer club originally took out a 400 million pound five-year loan from BAML, Goldman Sachs and HSBC in 2017 to finance the construction of its new 62,062-seat stadium. BAML declined to comment and the soccer club was not immediately reachable for comment.
- Bloomberg
Berlin’s Fintech Wealth Is Attracting at Least One Private Bank
(Bloomberg) -- Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.Berlin’s vibrant startup scene is creating a new generation of wealthy entrepreneurs who are increasingly looking for advice on how to manage their money.One bank that’s trying to capitalize on that demand is locally based Weberbank. While some of Germany’s biggest private banks are forgoing the capital, the 70-year-old company aims to grow its asset under management by 10% a year by tapping into this relatively new source of business.“The number of wealthy people is rising here. We see plenty of potential,” Chief Executive Officer Klaus Siegers said in an interview. The company has no need to look beyond the city for private-banking clients, he said.Siegers acknowledged that Berlin has a relatively small number of the kind of small and mid-sized companies that have thrived in other parts of the country, enriching their owners. “However, this gap is increasingly being filled by the startup scene in the city,” Siegers said.Berlin’s fintech boom has in recent months attracted big-name investors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. According to a study by EY, startups based in the city received a total of 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in financing in the first six months of this year alone. Salaries in the fintech industry are rising sharply, the head of Berlin-based investor Finleap said earlier this month.Old MoneyThe city’s newly rich aren’t the only reason why Siegers sees his potential customer base growing. “There are also established wealthy people who are attracted to Berlin’s art and culture and who want to relocate here. And of course, they also need a private bank in Berlin,” he said.The heads of Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft and Bankhaus Metzler recently declared Berlin unfit to house private banking locations, citing a lack of potential clients. Other companies in the industry, such as Fosun International Ltd.’s Hauck & Aufhaeuser, don’t have a presence in the city either.Since 2009, Weberbank has been owned by Mittelbrandenburgische Sparkasse. The public-sector lender bought the business from failing WestLB. Weberbank’s private-banking customers have, on average, around 2 million euros of assets, Siegers said, even though there is no set minimum to become a client. The company, which also caters to some institutional investors, has assets under management of about 6.2 billion euros and is profitable.(Quote on clients added in last paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Stephan Kahl in Frankfurt at skahl@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Erhard Krasny at ekrasny@bloomberg.net, Andrew BlackmanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Goldman moves to take majority control of China joint venture
Goldman Sachs has applied for majority control of its Chinese joint venture, the bank confirmed on Wednesday, the latest international bank to do so ahead of Chinese plans to eventually allow foreigners full control. The bank submitted an application with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on Monday to take its stake in Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities to 51% - the maximum permitted - from its current 33% holding. Western banks' lack of control over the JVs, along with their limited contribution to revenues, have long been a source of frustration for foreign banks in China.
- Zacks
Blockchain Is Revolutionizing The Way We Do Business
Blockchain is one of the most revolutionary technologies of this generation and has applications that spread across every sector of our economy. The technology has applications that go way beyond a means of transferring wealth.
- Reuters
Goldman Sachs, China's Ping An back artificial intelligence firm H20.ai
Goldman Sachs Group Inc , China's Ping An Global Voyager Fund and others have invested $72.5 million (£59.9 million) in H20.ai, a rapidly growing artificial intelligence startup, the companies said on Tuesday. Founded in 2012, California-based H20.ai is a software company that aims to make it easier for companies that lack the skilled workforce or time to adapt to the rapidly changing artificial intelligence landscape, Chief Executive and founder Sri Ambati said in an interview. Customers like Capital One Financial Corp , Wells Fargo & Co , Aetna and Booking.com can use H20's platform to automate model building, feature engineering and to pull valuable insights out of large amounts of the companies' proprietary data, Ambati said.
- Reuters
Goldman CEO memo calls Apple Card 'a beginning' on launch day
Goldman Sachs Group Inc officially became a credit-card lender on Tuesday by rolling out its first product with Apple Inc, but the bank has aspirations to grow much bigger in consumer lending, its chief executive said in an internal memo viewed by Reuters. The virtual credit card, which officially launched to all U.S. customers, is Goldman's first, and it represents a big push by the Wall Street bank to build out its young consumer business. "Apple Card is big, but it's also a beginning," Goldman's CEO David Solomon wrote in an internal email to employees.
- Bloomberg
Turkey to Reward Banks That Lend More With Looser Reserve Rules
(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Turkey’s central bank is following its record monetary easing with a push to get credit flowing again.Under regulatory changes unveiled on Monday, policy makers will determine the amount of cash banks must put aside as reserves depending on how much credit they extend in an effort to boost the economy through faster lending growth.Within the current tiered framework, the reserves are effectively an insurance against bank liabilities -- such as deposits and participation funds.The central bank said the revision will initially unlock about 5.4 billion liras ($960 million), and also provide $2.9 billion of gold and foreign-currency liquidity to the market.The central bank’s “decision is an act of expansionary monetary policy and insofar is in itself lira-negative,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of currency and commodity research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “Maybe it is so much focused on pushing the real economy that it became blind to inflation risks.”The lira fell on concern authorities are moving to loosen policy more aggressively than previously assumed. It suffered one of the world’s biggest losses after the announcement before partly recouping declines on Tuesday. The reaction in bank stocks was mixed.State banks stand to benefit the most from the changes because they’ve been at the forefront of government efforts to extend cheap loans.Required reserve ratios for banks with loan growth of 10% to 20% will be set at 2% -- with some exceptions -- while remaining unchanged for other banks, according to a statement on Monday. The ratios are currently at 7% for deposits of up to three months, 4% for six months, and 2% for up to one year.Additionally, the current remuneration rate of 13%, applied to mandatory lira-denominated reserves, is set at 15% for banks with 10%-20% loan growth and at 5% for others.“The move is intended to incentivize lending,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists Murat Unur in London and Clemens Grafe in Moscow said in a report. “Given banks’ hesitancy to increase lending, as implied by the flat loan stock,” similar moves “are also likely to continue.”(Updates with analyst comment in fourth paragraph, lira and stocks performance starting in fifth.)To contact the reporters on this story: Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.net;Constantine Courcoulas in Istanbul at ccourcoulas1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, ;Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Paul Abelsky, Alaa ShahineFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Zacks Industry Outlook Highlights: Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, Evercore and LPL
Zacks Industry Outlook Highlights: Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, Evercore and LPL
