Talk about passing the buck.
With Goldman Sachs in something of a pinch, the finger-pointing between top execs has begun — and, unsurprisingly, it has turned nasty almost immediately.
The Wall Street giant announced this week that it would slash jobs with earnings in a slump — and even said that it is taking away free office coffee.
Some c-suite sourpusses say that the company under the leadership of CEO David Solomon is too focused on flashy executives with “personal brands,” rather than knuckling down to the good old-fashioned hard work of making rich people richer with very little effort.
Insiders seem to be having a harder time seeing the fun side of Solomon’s own DJing career as DJ D-Sol now that the economy is in a spin.
Meanwhile there’s much grumbling about Solomon’s soft spot for rock star bankers — for example Kim Posnett, who has rocketed through the ranks in recent years, and is often to be seen speaking on panels, attending galas and sitting for interviews, while — the (ahem, male, ahem) insiders claim — many of her actual deals have fallen flat. (We should note that for all her alleged “personal branding,” Posnett has all of about 1500 Instagram followers, so Charli d’Amelio probably isn’t sweating it just yet).
According to the New York Times, the firm reported second quarter earnings of $2.93 billion, nearly half as much as the same quarter last year. The investment division where Posnett works — though, we hasten to add, not just Posnett works — was responsible for much of the downturn, earning 41% less in that time than the previous year. (We would be remiss if we didn’t note that Goldman Sachs’ executive team is reportedly around 80% male, so you’d think the number crunching know-it-alls over there would figure out that if something’s amiss, the raw data suggests its overwhelmingly likely to be the guys’ fault.)
Some insiders have even been making a racket because Posnett spent much of last week in a suite at the US Open as the company was preparing to announce the layoffs, rather than, say, at her desk trying to make the balance sheet look a little more rosy next quarter. (For the record, though, Page Six has seen a deal or two go down over $15 beers between sets out at Arthur Ashe Stadium so let’s not rule out an, er, net profit from those outings just yet).
A spokesperson called the barbs “baseless gossip.”
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