GOLDMAN SACHS

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., an American multinational investment bank and financial service provider, has a history that goes back to when it was founded in 1869 and today, it is based in New York City.

Founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman, Goldman’s son-in-law, Samuel Sachs joined the company in 1882 followed by both Goldman taking his son, Henry, and his son-in-law, Ludwig Dreyfuss, into the business, forming Goldman Sachs & Co.

By 1898, Goldman Sachs’ capital stood firmly at $1.6 million.

Entering the initial public offering in 1906 when Goldman Sachs took Sears, Roebuck and Company with the deal facilitated by Henry Goldman’s friendship with the owner of Sears, Julius Rosenwald.

In 1912 the first member of the founding family, Henry S. Bowers, became a partner in Goldman Sachs, earning a share in its profits.

The Sachs family took full control of Goldman Sachs when Henry Goldman resigned in 1917 until Waddill Catchings joined Goldman Sachs in 1918 and within 10 years since joining, Catchings was the partner with the single largest stake in Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs’ focus shifted from trading towards investment banking in 1930 when Sidney Weinberg became the senior partner resulting in the restoration of some reputation lost during the Stock Market Crash in 1929 with the launch of Goldman Sachs Trading Corp.

Goldman Sachs refocused on trading business when Gus Levy started building on the trading franchise in 1969 when he took over the role as Senior Partner with Weinberg retiring form Goldman Sachs by the end of the year.

A commodities trading group by the name of J. Aron & Company was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 1981 and the merger resulted in the creation of the Fixed Income division, which later became known as Fixed Income.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management was formed in 1986 with the purpose of managing the majority of the company’s mutual funds and hedge funds, which is still being done until today.

Goldman Sachs became the first bank based in the United States to rank in the top 10 of mergers and acquisitions in the UK in addition to becoming the first bank during the 1980s to distribute investment research electronically.

Goldman Sachs took ownership interest when it financed the Rockefeller Centre in 1994 followed by being the lead underwriter to the Yahoo! IPO in 1996 followed by being co-lead manager of the 2 trillion yen IPO for NTT DoCoMo.

After decades of deliberation, Goldman Sachs became a public company through its IPO in 1999.

After decades of deliberation, Goldman Sachs became a public company through its IPO in 1999.

After the IPO, 12.6% of the Goldman Sachs was sold to the public, 48.3% of Goldman Sachs was held by 221 former partners, 21.2% was held by non-partner employees and the remaining 17.9% was held by retired partners and two long-time investors.

Spear, Leeds, & Kellogg, one of the largest specialist firms on the New York Sock Exchange, was purchased by Goldman Sachs in 2000 and in 2003, Goldman Sachs took a 45% stake during a joint venture with JBWere.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs had announced the closure of their largest hedge fund, Global Alpha Fund LP, in 2011 followed by an agreement with Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management to acquire its stable value business in 2013

GS Bank, a direct bank, was launched by Goldman Sachs in 2016 and it started offering personal loans void of fees under the brand Marcus by Goldman Sachs

An investment in H20.ai brought together Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, NVIDIA, and Nexus Venture Partners in mid-2019.

Recent acquisitions for Goldman Sachs include that of Boyd Corporation in 2018 and United Capital Financial Advisers, LLC in 2019.

In effort to accelerate a global expansion to move into new industries beyond that of insurance and financial services, Goldman Sachs and Aquiline and World Innovation Lab invested around $51 million in Unqork, a New York-based software company, in early 2025.

Goldman Sachs oversees a high-value, extensive and vast product portfolio of asset management, commercial banking, commodities, investment banking, investment management, mutual funds, and prime brokerage.

By total revenue, Goldman Sachs is ranked 62nd in the Fortune 500 list of the largest corporations in the United States today.

For the 2019 period, Goldman Sachs reported a total revenue of $36.546 billion along with operating income of $10.583 billion and a total amount of assets valued at $992 billion.

Goldman Sachs is one of the leading investment banks and financial services companies globally and despite the crisis faced by various other financial institutions in 2008, Goldman Sachs maintained its position as a global leader.

Goldman Sachs has a diversified portfolio of clients which includes corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals that it provides a wide range of financial service to.

With the emergence and spread of Covid-19 on a global scale, a lot of businesses, especially financial institutions have experienced significant blows, but Golden Sachs’ stock has gone up by almost 30% closer towards the end of March.

Goldman Sachs’ equity strategist has reported that both the good and optimistic outlook has been priced into the current market and where the market is currently trading, the asymmetry of upside is around 2% with the downside coming in at 15%.

There are several risks that may result in not only a 15% unemployment rate across companies, but also the cutting of dividends during the second half of 2025 along with an economic recovery that is dragged-out the longer Covid-19 persists.

Earlier in 2025, the world saw the prices of oil decline severely as the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc in hundreds of countries with Goldman Sachs substantially concerned with two of its largest commodities, oil as well as livestock.

Due to the pandemic, numerous farmers are faced with a pronounced market imbalance resulting from the forecast which came at a time when Covid-19 has prompted the shut down of numerous operations around the globe.

Resulting from this is the unprecedented demand shock in energy markets and even though major oil benchmarks registered substantial gains in the past few weeks, Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate futures are still lower than the start of 2025 with 50%.

Goldman Sachs trades its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the stock symbol GS and forms part of the DJIA, S&P 100 and S&P 500 components.

Data pertaining to an analysis done on the market performance for the first quarter of 2025, which ended in March, indicated net revenues amounting to $8,743 million  as opposed to what was achieved in 2019 with an amount of $8,807 million.

Total non-interest revenues accumulated amounted to $7,430 million for the first 2025 quarter with operating expenses amounting to $6,458 million.

The basic EPS was $3.12 and diluted $3.11 with the net earnings applicable to common shareholders at a total of $1,123 million.

With a balanced sheet and strong financials with a steady performance forecasted despite the Covid-19 pandemic, shareholders who buy or sell shares can expect lucrative dividends and returns.

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• Can I buy Goldman Sachs shares in South Africa?
  Yes, you can.

• How to buy Goldman Sachs shares
  By simply opening a free account on SA Shares, or by clicking the “Buy this Share” button to get started.

• What is the current share price?
  By clicking on the link provided above, you can view the real-time Goldman Sachs share price on the platform.

• Is Goldman Sachs a good share to buy?
  Yes, it is. Goldman Sachs has shown solid financial performance during the first quarter of 2025 with more improvement forecasted for the remainder of the year.

• Can I buy Goldman Sachs CFD through SA Shares?
  Yes, you can.