Goldman Sach's Brand Name

I think that Goldman Sach's has a very strong, globalizing kind of personality that much of the public may agree with. The website's home page has recently been changed to include a graphic of a view from upbove of an urban area, expanding across the page, with the words "we see opportunity" going across it. Immediately, the viewer of the website gets the impression that the company is a huge, globalizing, well known, growing and expanding company. The company has mostly been known for its trading and investment banking, but it has been trying more recently to increase its international private banking business aspect. It was reported by Douglas C. Grip, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, that the company has plans to more than double the amount of private client investment managers existing outside of the U.S. He said that, "We’re looking to grow dramatically over the next five years." However, this worldwide firm can come into some problems if its expansion and "globalization" becomes too much of a focus because the public might start seeing the firm as being very greedy.

Although this may be the case for some of the public, if research is conducted enough and people try to find out what Goldman Sachs is really about, they will really find a company who cares about their employees, their shareholders, investors, and has a philanthropic mission that it takes very seriously. Goldman Sachs can be seen as a company that values their relationship with its employees by addressing on the website, "“It all comes back to the team. Even when you’re making decisions that can affect the entire world, you always have people backing you up.” This quote taken directly from the website, also goes along with the idea of Goldman Sachs being all over the world. Goldman Sach's can rely on their reputation to get them investors and customers, and they stand in competition with other investing firms or banks, such as Swiss Bank.

I personally think that the globalization of the firm will only further enhance their reputation as it continuously works towards engaging more customers and creating a more diverse audience. Money and investing is always seen as such a serious and important aspect of business, which is should be, and even though some people may see the firm as being too involved in making money and about themselves, when it comes to the actual investors who are putting their money in the firm and essentially giving them business, this way of working and thinking is exactly what will make those people content and satisfied with the services. However, Goldman Sachs does do more than just worry about their financial business because of their philanthropic aspirations and actions as well as through campaigns that are dedicated towards helping others or the world. Perhaps, the public relations people could do a little more advertising and promoting of the good, charitable things that the firm has done and is doing so that less of the public will associate Goldman Sachs with greed.

Insider Trading Scandal

In 2006, it was reported that an Goldman Sachs employee, Eugene Plotkin (shown below), made $6.7 million through insider trading by employing an analyst who shared with them inside deals on Wall Street, which was the first home of the New York Stock Exchange. Mr. Plotkin was sentenced to 2 years and 2 months in jail for his crime.

Another analyst accused was employeed by Merrill Lynch. Goldman Sach's insider trading scandal involved many details and even includes accusations that the employees of Goldman Sach's hired strippers to try to get investment bankers to provide stock tips and inside information on potential mergers, which of course all is information that should not be disclosed. Following the report of this insider trading occurance, the corporate scandal and the company name was all over headlines in newspapers across the U.S. The company made statements that they were cooperating with the proper authorities and a spokesperson for the company said: ''We have fully cooperated with the authorities and their investigation." This is a positive statement to make and shows that the company is taking corporate responsibility by complying with legal requirements. However, they need to do more to go beyond the legal compliance such as offering statements about their ethics that will try to get the public to trust them again. I think that they have included in their comment something like "We're sorry this disloyal incident occured, however it doesn't reflect Goldman Sachs as a whole because we pride ourselves in our ethical standards so that incidents such as this one never occurs." Because insider trading has occured many times in financial sectors of business I think the public was not very shocked that it happened at Goldman Sachs. I got the impression after researching into the incident that Goldman Sachs did not want to offer a long comment because they didn't want more attention for what happened so perhaps they were trying to take the spotlight off them by not getting so involved.

Insider trading refers "to buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security," which essentially is getting information before the public gets it and acting on it, usually making a big profit. Because the insider trading scandal threatened investors and shareholder's confidence in Goldman Sachs, they needed to really work on getting back their trustworthy and loyal reputation.

The Investor Relations of Goldman Sachs

I was very impressed by Goldman Sach's Annual Report because of the web designs they used to really engage the audience. They allow you to either download a version or look into the online version, which they enhanced to really get the full attention of whoever is interesed in learning more. Goldman Sachs' takes the time to actually divide the annual report into sections with seperate links, so that it is much easier to find exactly what you may be looking for. The 2007 Annual Report is divided into an introduction, letter to shareholders, financial highlights, we see opportunity, the face of, core businesses, business principles, & financials & downloads. I think that the company did a fantastic job in making an Annual Report, which may not be so enthralling or interesting for everybody to read, into something that actually gets people to want to read more because it is so easy to follow and understand. Because of this I would say that the online version of the Annual Report would be more of a marketing piece because of its draw and attention. However, if you are simply looking for facts and numbers, then the downloadable Annual Report would be for you, so this is the economical side of it. Goldman Sachs' covers both sides of covering an Annual Report and this is why they are such a respected financial firm.

I think that the actual purpose of the Annual Report (online version) is to get the audience to have a feel for the people who work for Goldman Sachs as well as getting across the point that they put their clients first. They also use this time to tell of all their unique opportunities they have had and what they are doing in other parts of the world. They use the Annual Report as a way to tell the public all that is going on in the company, as well as what strategic workers they have and what Goldman Sachs is really all about, which I think makes the Annual Report more interesting to read. Goldman Sachs focuses on the "culture" of their employees which "reflects 158 nationalities and 106 languages" among their employees.


In the "Letter to the Shareholders" from CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, the letter starts out discussing the "turbulence across global markets" in the past year, but even though these hard conditions existed, Goldman Sachs was able to stay strong. They discuss the strength of their "client franchise," which involves clients seeking advice and counsel from the firm, and sometimes partnering up with them. However, the letter seemed to what to get across the message that Goldman Sachs employees are what really makes the firm what it is. The letter stresses positive aspects of the over 30,000 employees such as teamwork, skills & expertise, and being results driven. It describes this as the "culture" of the firm and it is this culture that makes the firm different from others. Because the firm focuses so much on its employees, it also discusses the recruiting the firm does and how more than 80% of job offers made last year were accepted. The firm wants its shareholders to know that Goldman Sachs believes in giving back and has created new philanthropic services, in which the firm's partners will contribute to charitable organizations and it will eventually reach to $1 billion donated to charitable funds. Lastly, the letter ends with "looking ahead" so that the shareholder knows that the firm is always thinking about the future. I think investors will certainly feel as though they have invested in a firm that not only cares about business and making money, but also one that truly is concerned about the people that they employee. This is seen in the tone of the whole letter because it is very optimistic yet shows that the company is serious about what it does, which makes it come across as even more credible.

The last news release that the company posted on its website was entitled, "Goldman Sachs reports first quarter earnings per common share of $3.23." I think that this press release could be considered "reader friendly" because it actually highlights in bullet form what they call "business highlights," making it much easier and quicker to find out facts. The press release consists of 10 pages, but is broken up throughout by various subtitles, which also works to make it more effeciently read. The CEO is quoted at the bottom of the first place and talks about despite the difficult conditions, Goldman Sachs stays strong and that although "the market conditions present challenges at the moment, they also offer considerable opportunities." I think that this quote is a good one because it shows that the CEO is looking to take a bad situation (the economy) and try to turn it into something good for the company, which is what shareholders and people interested in Goldman Sachs are going to want to be told. Because I do not find the financial world to be that interesting and I was able to actually read the annual report, news release and letter to the shareholder, I think that the company does an excellent job of taking that "boring" aspect out of it.