by Saeed Azhar
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs is considering selling part of its wealth management business dedicated to high net worth clients, the bank said in a statement on Monday.
The group is evaluating options for its investment advisory division, dubbed “Personal Financial Management” (PFM), which manages around $29 billion.
Goldman Sachs had acquired PFM, formerly known as United Capital Financial Partners, for $750 million in 2019 in a bid to expand its customer base beyond the “ultra-rich”.
But this division has remained small within the wealth management business, which manages a total of $1 trillion in assets for very high-income clients.
The potential sale comes as Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon reorganized the bank into three major divisions last year and scaled back its struggling retail banking ambitions.
Its “fintech” subsidiary, GreenSky, is also up for sale.
David Solomon is under pressure to turn around the big Wall Street bank which saw its second-quarter profit drop 60% due to past writedowns in retail banking and investments in real estate.
Goldman Sachs aims to grow in the core business of wealth management for the “ultra-rich”, a segment where US banks compete because these activities generate more stable income than investment banking, which is more closely linked to the economic environment.
(Report Saeed Azhar; Blandine Hénault for the French version, edited by Kate Entringer)
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