The Wall Street firm is making changes to its asset management business, but an exodus of senior figures may derail the CEO's plans, a media report said.

The chief investment officer for asset and wealth management at Goldman Sachs, Julian Salisbury, is leaving the US firm after a 25-year tenure, this publication can confirm.

Separately, Takashi Murata, co-head of private investments in Asia-Pacific, is expected to depart, and others might follow, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.
 
Salisbury’s departure means that six of the 11 Goldman partners named in a company memo in early 2022 – as part of an overhaul of asset management – have left or are on their way out following a series of organizational and leadership changes, the WSJ continued. They include Luke Sarsfield, who was named in that memo as co-head of asset management and lasted in the position less than a year, and Katie Koch, who was CIO of public equity. She left to run money manager TCW Group. 

“This year, we promoted 11 investors to partner and hired nine new MD investors. Our attrition rate is the lowest in years for the investors who are managing the portfolios. We have an experienced and tenured team of investment leaders who will continue to manage client portfolios across all asset classes,” a Goldman Sachs spokesperson told Family Wealth Report. 

“Marc Nachmann will continue to oversee our investment teams as global head of AWM [asset and wealth management] supported by strong investment leadership teams. We are committed to our investment teams, and enthusiastic about the evolution of our business. Our investment teams around the world represent over 1,700 professionals across strategies spanning the public and private markets.”

The firm also said the financial numbers pointed to success.

“We are exceeding our growth plans in the client business. We are on track to meet our 2024 $10 billion management fee target. We have already exceeded our $2 billion alternative fee target on an annualized basis in the most recent quarter,” the spokesperson continued. “We are ahead of schedule on our alternative fundraising goal of $225 billion by the end of 2024, having raised $204 billion in total, with $25 billion in the first half of 2023.”

Quarter century
An internal memo from Goldmans' CEO, David Solomon, and seen by FWR, said: “Throughout his tenure at the firm, Julian has held a number of leadership roles, most recently helping drive the growth of our unified asset management business. Before that, Julian partnered closely with a number of leaders across the firm to unify our five different investing platforms and join our efforts across alternative and traditional asset management to better serve our clients. Julian’s leadership building and scaling multiple investment businesses in support of our broad, global and deep asset management franchise will have a lasting impact.”

Salisbury joined the US firm in 1998.

The WSJ article said changes to the asset management business have unsettled some people, while others chose to leave after missing out on promotions.

Salisbury is leaving Goldman Sachs to join the investment firm Sixth Street as co-CIO, the news report said.

In the second quarter, the asset and wealth management unit hit $2.71 trillion in assets under management.