The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., or simply Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is one of the world's largest global investment banks. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869, and is headquartered in the Lower Manhattan area of New York City at 85 Broad Street. Goldman Sachs has offices in leading financial centers such as New York City, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Frankfurt, Zürich, Paris, São Paulo, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Salt Lake City, Sydney, Dubai, Milan, Melbourne, Tokyo, Taipei, Moscow and Toronto.
Goldman Sachs acts as a financial advisor to some of the most important companies, largest governments, and wealthiest families in the world. It is a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasury securities market. Goldman Sachs offers its clients mergers & acquisitions advisory, provides underwriting services, engages in proprietary trading, invests in private equity deals, and also manages the wealth of affluent individuals and families.

History
As of 2006, Goldman Sachs employed 26,500 people worldwide. It reported earnings of US$9.54 billion and record earnings per share of $19.69.

Corporate affairs
Goldman Sachs is divided into three core businesses.

Businesses
Investment Banking is divided into two divisions and includes Financial Advisory (mergers and acquisitions, investitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings and spin-offs) and Underwriting (public offerings and private placements of equity, equity-related and debt instruments). Goldman Sachs is one of the leading investment banks, appearing in league tables. In mergers and acquisitions, it gained fame historically by advising clients on how to avoid hostile takeovers. Goldman Sachs, for a long time during the 1980s, was the only major investment bank with a strict policy against helping to initiate a hostile takeover, which increased Goldman's reputation immensely. This segment accounts for around 15 percent of Goldman Sachs' revenues.

Investment banking
Trading and Principal Investments is the largest of the three core segments, and is the company's profit center. The segment is divided into three divisions and includes Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (trading in interest rate and credit products, mortgage-backed securities and loans, currencies and commodities, structured and derivative products), Equities (trading in equities, equity-related products, equity derivatives, structured products and executing client trades in equities, options, and Futures contracts on world markets), and Principal Investments (merchant banking investments and funds). This segment consists of the revenues and profit gained from the Bank's trading activities, both on behalf of its clients (known as flow trading) and for its own account (known as proprietary trading).
Most trading done by Goldman is not speculative, but rather an attempt to profit from bid-ask spreads in the process of acting as a market maker. Around 65 percent of Goldman's revenues and profits are derived from this area. Upon its IPO, Goldman predicted that this segment would not grow as fast as its Investment Banking division and would be responsible for a shrinking proportion of earnings. The opposite has been true, however, and resulted in Lloyd Blankfein's appointment to President and Chief Operating Officer after John Thain's departure to run the NYSE and John L. Thornton's departure for an academic position in China.

Trading
Asset Management and Securities Services is a rapidly growing business for Goldman as it gains market share. It is separated into two divisions, and includes Asset Management, which provides large institutions and very wealthy individuals with investment advisory, financial planning services, and the management of mutual funds, as well as the so-called alternative investments (hedge funds, funds of funds, real estate funds, and private equity funds). The Securities Services division provides prime brokerage, financing services, and securities lending to mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, foundations, and high-net-worth individuals. This segment accounts for around 19 percent of Goldman's earnings. As of 2006, the Goldman Sachs Asset Management hedge fund is the largest in the United States with $29.5 billion under management.

Asset management and securities services
GS Capital Partners is the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs. It has invested over $17 billion in the 20 years from 1986 to 2006. One of the most prominent funds is the GS Capital Partners V fund, which comprises over $8.5 billion of equity.

GS Capital Partners

Cogentrix Energy (Energy)
American Casino & Entertainment Properties (Casinos)
Coffeyville Resources LLC (Refinery)
Myers Industries, Inc. (Plastic & Rubber)
USI Holdings Corporation (Insurance & Finance)
East Coast Power LLC (Energy)
Zilkha Renewable Energy (Energy)
Queens Moat Houses (Hotels)
Sequoia Credit Consolidation (Finance)
Shineway Group (Meat Processing)
Equity Inns, Inc. (Hotels) Major Assets (GS Group)
In December 2005, four years after its report on the emerging "BRIC" economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), Goldman Sachs named its "Next Eleven" list of countries, using macroeconomic stability, political maturity, openness of trade and investment policies and quality of education as criteria: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam.

Corporate citizenship

Joshua Bolten - current White House Chief of Staff
Erin Burnett - CNBC Host
Sacha Baron Cohen - Actor
Michael Cohrs - Head of Global Banking at Deutsche Bank
Jim Cramer - founder of TheStreet.com and Smartmoney.com, best selling author, and host of Mad Money on CNBC
Henry H. Fowler - 58th United States Secretary of the Treasury (1965-1969)
Edward Lampert- Hedge Fund Manager of ESL Investments. Brought K-Mart out of Bankruptcy in 2003.
Ocado - 3 Founders of first UK online supermarket were all former Fixed Income Traders at Goldman Sachs London
George Herbert Walker IV - member of the Bush family
Robert Zoellick - United States Trade Representative (2001-2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005-2006), World Bank President Other Notable Alumni
In 2005, the firm advised both the New York Stock Exchange and Archipelago, which owns an electronic trading platform, in merger talks. Controversy surrounded the deal as John Thain, who heads the New York Stock Exchange, was a former Goldman Sachs Executive.

See also

Bear Stearns
Citigroup
Banc of America Securities
Credit Suisse
Deutsche Bank
JPMorganChase
Lehman Brothers
Merrill Lynch
Morgan Stanley
Raymond James
UBS