The firm is expected to follow an announcement with a rapid transfer of power, choosing from one of its two co-presidents, Harvey Schwartz and David Solomon, the newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying.

Family Wealth Report has contacted Goldmans for comment and may update in due course.

There is no certainty on the timing of moves if or when Blankfein, 63, decides to go. The WSJ said it is likely he will retire ahead of or early in Goldman’s 150th anniversary year in 2019, a date appealing to the history enthusiast. Blankfein has been at the investment banking and wealth management firm for 36 years, rising through the ranks after joining in 1982.

Blankfein’s reign has been tough at times; he was criticised by Washington legislators for the firm’s role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. During his tenure, Goldman Sachs, often seen as the epitome of the ruthless investment banking firm, paid $550 million to the government to settle claims it lied to investors about a bond that went sour.

Schwartz had run Goldman’s trading division before becoming chief financial officer. Solomon is an investment banker. Both men were promoted 15 months ago.

Changes since 2008

R Christopher Whalen, a banking industry figure, writer and commentator , reflected on the changes at Goldmans that have taken place in recent years post-crisis.

"One of the key measures of financial strength for a universal bank in the post-Dodd Frank world is assets under management , in part because so many universal banks have de-emphasized trading and focused instead on the regular cash flows of wealth management," Whalen wrote in his Institutional Risk Analyst blog.

"At MS , assets under management were $438 billion at the end of 2017 generating an average of 46bp of fee income of $2.1 billion in 2017.  Total fee based client assets at MS were $1 trillion at year-end earning 76bp on average or over $13 billion in pretax income. Of the $37 billion in net revenues for MS at year end 2017, 50% came from sales and trading, 44 per cent came from wealth management and the remainder from investment management," he wrote.

"By comparison, GS had $32 billion in net revenues at December 31, 2017, with less than a third coming from wealth and investment management and the largest portion from traditional trading and investment banking activities.  GS has $1 trillion plus in assets under supervision, plus another $300 billion in liquidity products, yet the Investment Management segment generated half the net revenues of the comparable business at MS," he wrote.