Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Investment bank Goldman Sachs was, until 1998, Wall Street's last major private partnership, and significantly more profitable than any of its publicly-owned competitors. How it sustained this success for most of its 129 years has for decades intrigued financial players and pundits. In this study, the company's history and mystique are examined by a former Goldman Sachs vice-president. Endlich traces the rise and development of the firm in the context of its prevailing concept: "People and Culture". She documents how close client-contact, teamwork and focus on long-term profitability over short-term goals brought the firm to a pinnacle of $3 billion pretax profits in 1997. In June 1998, the partners of Goldman Sachs voted to go public.

Reviews

'A fine read about the rise and subsequent antics of a major league investment bank.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Thoughtful, vivid and full of enjoyable detail.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Endlich, a former vice president and trader at the bank is well placed to write a history of the institution whose rise and rise constitutes "one of the greatest financial success stories of the twentieth century."' SUNDAY TIMES 'This will be an absorbing read for anyone into the world of high finance.' IRELAND ON SUNDAY 'To judge by her first book, a distinguished career as a writer lies ahead of her.' IRELAND EXAMINER 'Goldman Sachs brings you inside the rarefied boardrooms of one of the most secretive Wall Street banking giants. Begun by a German immigrant in the late 1800s as a small family-run business, Goldman Sachs rose to become the world's top investment bank in the 1990s, even without selling stock to the public. It attracted some of the best talent in the business and cultivated an image of superiority and exclusivity. "The Goldman Sachs mystique was born of secrecy and success. Nothing like it exists on Wall Street," writes the author, Lisa Endlich, a former vice president at the firm. But behind that mystique lie tales of being swindled by British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, multimillion-dollar losses on bad trades and the on-again, off-again attempts to go public. The book begins and ends with the firm's efforts to go public and get greater access to capital. Most other brokerages are already publicly traded, but internecine conflict and financial turmoil always seem to prevent Goldman from joining the action. In September 1998, for instance, Goldman stunned investors when it dropped plans for a stock offering amid a plunge in the market. A management shake-up soon followed. Goldman Sachs is an intriguing history of the company that invented such financial tools as block trading, commercial paper and risk arbitrage. The book can sometimes be critical, but is largely a favourable portrait by a former employee.' Dan Ring, AMAZON.COM

Author Bio

Lisa Endlich is a former vice-president and trader at Goldman Sachs.