Chief executive officer David Solomon (pictured) said he was pleased with the bank’s performance in the first quarter, ‘especially in the context of a muted start to the year’.
Goldman Sachs has reported an increase in figures for its first quarter of 2019 compared to the end of 2018, as market volatility subsided, though levels are still down year-on-year.
The bank saw revenues of US$8.81 billion in Q1, a 13% drop from the start of the previous year, with its Americas business contributing nearly two-thirds of the total, followed by Emea (28%) and Apac (12%). It blamed the drop on lower net revenues in its institutional client services (-18%) and investing & lending (-12%) businesses.
It said in its results presentation that net revenues in fixed income, currency and commodities client execution of US$1.84 billion, reflected lower net revenues in interest rate products, currencies and credit products, partially offset by higher net revenues in mortgages and commodities. Figures in its equities businesses were also lower than in 2018, as revenues originating from equities client execution, particularly in derivatives, were down.
It reported net interest income of US$1.2 billion, a 23% rise year-on-year.
The New York bank is the fifth largest US institution, with a market share of nearly 8%, according to SRP data. It sold 640 structured products during the first quarter of 2019, amounting to sales of roughly US$2.3 billion. The vast majority of the products (553/US$1.1 billion) was sold in the US, followed by institutional sales (US$ 252.9m across 31 products) then Italy (US$103.75m across 14 products). In comparison, Bank of America gathered sales levels of US$1.1 billion with 111 products.
Registered notes accounted for the bulk of the products issues (433), gathering sales of US$898.3m during the quarter. It also sold 125 certificates of deposit worth US$222.8m. Like Bank of America, the two most popular underlyings were S&P500 and Russell 2000, which were used in 208 and 158 products respectively.
The US investment changed its systematic trading strategy team in February. Both Stefan Bollinger, co-head of global sales systematic trading strategies (Strats) and Thalia Chryssikou moved to the buy-side business to join Chris French as co-head of private wealth management Emea, according to a memo seen by SRP.
Bollinger’s appointment is aimed at bolstering the growth of the bank’s private wealth franchise, which has been a 'growing contributor to the division’s revenues’ with Emea PWM ‘delivering outsized performance over the past several years’.
Click here to see Goldman Sachs’ Q1 results