public traded as nyse gs dow jones industrial average component s & p 500 component industry financial services founded 1869 ; 147 years ago 1869 founder marcus goldman samuel sachs headquarters 200 west street new york new york u.s. area served worldwide key people lloyd blankfein chairman and ceo gary d. cohn president and coo products asset management commercial banking commodities investment banking investment management mutual funds prime brokerage revenue us 39.20 billion 2015 1 operating income us 8.77 billion 2015 1 net income us 6.08 billion 2015 1 total assets us 861 billion 2015 1 total equity us 86.73 billion 2015 1 number of employees 34 800 2016 2 capital ratio 12.2 % q1 fy 2016 3 rating standard & poor s bbb 3 moody s a3 3 fitch ratings a 3 website www.goldmansachs.com the goldman sachs group inc. is an american multinational finance company that engages in global investment banking investment management securities and other financial services primarily with institutional clients . goldman sachs was founded in 1869 and is headquartered at 200 west street in lower manhattan new york city with additional offices in other international financial centers . 4 the firm provides asset management mergers and acquisitions advice prime brokerage and underwriting services to its clients which include corporations governments and individuals . the firm also engages in market making and private equity deals and is a primary dealer in the u.s. treasury security market . due to its involvement in subprime mortgages goldman sachs was hit hard by the 2008 economic crisis 5 and was subsequently rescued as part of a massive u.s. government bailout . former goldman executives who moved on to government positions include former u.s. secretaries of the treasury robert rubin and henry paulson ; european central bank president mario draghi ; and former bank of canada governor and current governor of the bank of england mark carney . contents 1 history 1.1 1869 1930 1.2 1930 1980 1.3 1980 1999 1.4 initial public offering in 1999 1.5 acquisitions 1999 2009 1.6 change in leadership 2006 1.7 actions in the 2007 2008 mortgage crisis 1.8 tarp and berkshire hathaway investment 2008 1.9 use of federal reserve s emergency liquidity programs 2008 1.10 apple corporate bond sale 2013 1.11 underwriting fees received from twitter ipo 2013 1.12 purchase of ge capital bank 2015 1.13 setlcoin virtual currency 2014 2 corporate affairs 2.1 compensation 2.2 litigation 3 current operations 3.1 investment banking 3.1.1 sample transaction highway privatization 2007 3.2 investing & lending 3.2.1 sample investment australian loan portfolio 2013 3.3 institutional client services 3.4 investment management 3.4.1 shut down of global alpha hedge fund 2011 3.4.2 acquisition of business from deutsche bank 2013 3.4.3 gs capital partners 3.4.3.1 major private equity assets 3.5 predictions regarding emerging markets in 2005 3.6 investment banking operations in malaysia 4 corporate citizenship 4.1 social impact bonds 4.2 criticism of decline in tax liability in 2008 4.3 criticism of opposition to basel iii 5 controversies 5.1 sale of dragon systems to lernout & hauspie 5.2 involvement in the european sovereign debt crisis 5.3 employee s views 5.3.1 greg smith resignation letter 5.3.2 what happened to goldman sachs by steven mandis 5.3.3 cristina chen oster and shanna orlich lawsuit 5.4 california bonds 5.5 personnel revolving door with us government 5.5.1 former new york fed chairman s ties to the firm 5.6 insider trading cases 5.7 stub month and allegedly misleading results in december 2008 5.8 involvement with the bailout of aig 5.8.1 firm s response to criticism of aig payments 5.8.2 final aig meetings on september 15 at the new york federal reserve 5.9 60 million settlement for massachusetts subprime mortgages 2009 5.10 abacus mortgage backed cdos 2010 5.10.1 2010 sec civil fraud lawsuit 5.11 other prosecutorial actions 5.12 alleged commodity price manipulation 5.12.1 goldman sachs commodity index and the 2005 2008 food bubble 5.12.2 aluminum price and supply 5.13 oil futures speculation 5.14 initial public offering kickback bribes 5.15 taylor related civil and criminal case 5.16 danish utility sale 2014 5.17 libya investment losses 2013 5.18 improper securities lending practices 5.19 malaysia 1mdb scandal 6 political contributions 7 list of officers and directors 8 headquarters and other major offices 9 goldman sachs research papers 10 see also 11 references 12 further reading 13 external links history edit 1869 1930 edit see also goldman sachs family goldman sachs was founded in new york in 1869 by marcus goldman . 6 7 in 1882 goldman s son in law samuel sachs joined the firm . 8 in 1885 goldman took his son henry and his son in law ludwig dreyfuss into the business and the firm adopted its present name goldman sachs & co. 9 the company made a name for itself pioneering the use of commercial paper for entrepreneurs and joined the new york stock exchange nyse in 1896 . 10 by 1898 the firm s capital stood at 1.6 million about 46 million in real value and was growing rapidly . 10 goldman entered the ipo market in 1906 when it took sears roebuck and company public . 10 the deal occurred due to henry goldman s personal friendship with the owner of sears julius rosenwald . 10 other ipos followed including f. w. woolworth and continental can . 10 in 1912 henry s. bowers became the first non family member and non jew to become partner . 10 in 1917 under growing pressure from the other partners in the firm due to his pro german stance henry goldman resigned . 10 control of the firm was now in the hands of the sachs family . 10 waddill catchings joined the company in 1918 . 10 in 1920 the firm moved from 60 wall street to 1.5 million 12 storey premises on 30 32 pine street . 10 by 1928 catchings was the goldman partner with the single largest stake in the firm . 10 on december 4 1928 the firm launched the goldman sachs trading corp. a closed end fund . the fund failed during the stock market crash of 1929 amid accusations that goldman had engaged in share price manipulation and insider trading . 10 1930 1980 edit in 1930 the firm ousted catchings and sidney weinberg assumed the role of senior partner and shifted goldman s focus away from trading and towards investment banking . 10 it was weinberg s actions that helped to restore some of goldman s tarnished reputation . on the back of weinberg goldman was lead advisor on the ford motor company s ipo in 1956 which at the time was a major coup on wall street . under weinberg s reign the firm also started an investment research division and a municipal bond department . it also was at this time that the firm became an early innovator in risk arbitrage . gus levy joined the firm in the 1950s as a securities trader which started a trend at goldman where there would be two powers generally vying for supremacy one from investment banking and one from securities trading . for most of the 1950s and 1960s this would be weinberg and levy . levy was a pioneer in block trading and the firm established this trend under his guidance . due to weinberg s heavy influence at the firm it formed an investment banking division in 1956 in an attempt to spread around influence and not focus it all on weinberg . in 1969 levy took over as senior partner from weinberg and built goldman s trading franchise once again . it is levy who is credited with goldman s famous philosophy of being long term greedy which implied that as long as money is made over the long term trading losses in the short term were not to be worried about . at the same time partners reinvested almost all of their earnings in the firm so the focus was always on the future . 11 that same year weinberg retired from the firm . another financial crisis for the firm occurred in 1970 when the penn central transportation company went bankrupt with over 80 million in commercial paper outstanding most of it issued through goldman sachs . the bankruptcy was large and the resulting lawsuits notably by the sec threatened the partnership capital life and reputation of the firm . 12 it was this bankruptcy that resulted in credit ratings being created for every issuer of commercial paper today by several credit rating services . 13 during the 1970s the firm also expanded in several ways . under the direction of senior partner stanley r. miller it opened its first international office in london in 1970 and created a private wealth division along with a fixed income division in 1972 . it also pioneered the white knight strategy in 1974 during its attempts to defend electric storage battery against a hostile takeover bid from international nickel and goldman s rival morgan stanley . 14 this action would boost the firm s reputation as an investment advisor because it pledged to no longer participate in hostile takeovers . john l. weinberg the son of sidney weinberg and john c. whitehead assumed roles of co senior partners in 1976 once again emphasizing the co leadership at the firm . one of their initiatives 15 was the establishment of 14 business principles that the firm still claims to apply . 16 1980 1999 edit on november 16 1981 the firm acquired j. aron & company a commodities trading firm which merged with the fixed income division to become known as fixed income currencies and commodities . j. aron was a player in the coffee and gold markets and the current ceo of goldman lloyd blankfein joined the firm as a result of this merger . in 1985 it underwrote the public offering of the real estate investment trust that owned rockefeller center then the largest reit offering in history . in accordance with the beginning of the dissolution of the soviet union the firm also became involved in facilitating the global privatization movement by advising companies that were spinning off from their parent governments . in 1986 the firm formed goldman sachs asset management which manages the majority of its mutual funds and hedge funds today . in the same year the firm also underwrote the ipo of microsoft advised general electric on its acquisition of rca and joined the london and tokyo stock exchanges . 1986 also was the year when goldman became the first united states bank to rank in the top 10 of mergers and acquisitions in the united kingdom . during the 1980s the firm became the first bank to distribute its investment research electronically and created the first public offering of original issue deep discount bond . robert rubin and stephen friedman assumed the co senior partnership in 1990 and pledged to focus on globalization of the firm and strengthening the merger & acquisition and trading business lines . during their reign the firm introduced paperless trading to the new york stock exchange and lead managed the first ever global debt offering by a u.s. corporation . it also launched the goldman sachs commodity index gsci and opened a beijing office in 1994 . also in 1994 jon corzine assumed leadership of the firm as ceo following the departure of rubin and friedman . another momentous event in goldman s history was the mexican bailout of 1995 . rubin drew criticism in congress for using a treasury department account under his personal control to distribute 20 billion to bail out mexican bonds of which goldman was a key distributor . 17 on november 22 1994 the mexican bolsa stock market had admitted goldman sachs and one other firm to operate on that market . 18 the 1994 economic crisis in mexico threatened to wipe out the value of mexico s bonds held by goldman sachs . the firm joined david rockefeller and partners in a 50