The cuts appear to be on the deal-making, M&A side of the US firm, while the story made no direct reference to private wealth management.

Goldman Sachs plans to let go of several thousand employees, the Wall Street Journal reported on December 16. The report did not state whether private wealth management is going to be affected by the changes.

The WSJ, quoting an unnamed source, said the bank will be leaner in 2023, but it will still have more employees than it did before the pandemic. Goldman had 49,000 employees as of September, up from about 38,000 at the end of 2019.

Family Wealth Report contacted Goldman Sachs on the article; the bank declined to comment.

The firm expects to cut and, in some cases, eliminate, the annual bonuses of underperforming employees, the report said. 

As the story made clear, the bank recruited on the investment banking side to keep up with a busy mergers and acquisitions period but slowing growth and rising interest rates in 2022 have cut deal-flow for banks.

In October, Goldman Sachs said net revenues in its wealth and consumer segment stood at $2.38 billion for the third quarter, rising by 18 per cent on the same period a year ago and 9 per cent from the previous three-month period. Net revenues in wealth management were $1.63 billion, flat on a year ago, caused by “significantly lower Incentive fees” and offset by significantly higher net revenues in private banking and lending, due to the impact of higher loan and deposit balances. Across the whole firm, its efficiency ratio for the first nine months of 2022 was 62.7 per cent, compared with 52.8 per cent for the first nine months of 2021.