Product Description

Goldman Sachs, the premier investment bank in the world, was until recently Wall Street's last major private partnership, and significantly more profitable than any of its publicly owned competitors. How it sustained this success for most of its 129 years has for decades mystified financial players and pundits. Now, in this fascinating and authoritative study, the Goldman Sachs history and mystique are examined in unprecedented depth. Endlich, a former Goldman Sachs vice president with access to all levels of management, traces the rise and development of the firm in the context of its prevailing concept, 'People and Culture.' She documents how close client-contact, teamwork, and focus on long-term profitability over short-term goals brought the firm to a pinnacle of $3 billion pretax profits in 1997. In June 1998 the partners of Goldman Sachs voted to go public, and it made international front-page news. The story of the transformation will continue to attract extensive coverage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #442619 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Goldman Sachs brings you inside the rarefied boardrooms of one of the most secretive Wall Street banking giants. Begun by a German immigrant in the late 1800s as a small family-run business, Goldman Sachs rose to become the world's top investment bank in the 1990s, even without selling stock to the public. It attracted some of the best talent in the business and cultivated an image of superiority and exclusivity. "The Goldman Sachs mystique was born of secrecy and success. Nothing like it exists on Wall Street," writes the author, Lisa Endlich, a former vice president at the firm. But behind that mystique lie tales of being swindled by British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, multimillion-dollar losses on bad trades and the on-again, off-again attempts to go public. The book begins and ends with the firm's efforts to go public and get greater access to capital. Most other brokerages are already publicly traded, but internecine conflict and financial turmoil always seem to prevent Goldman from joining the action. In September 1998, for instance, Goldman stunned investors when it dropped plans for a stock offering amid a plunge in the market. A management shake-up soon followed. Goldman Sachs is an intriguing history of the company that invented such financial tools as block trading, commercial paper and risk arbitrage. The book can sometimes be critical, but is largely a favourable portrait by a former employee. --Dan Ring, Amazon.com

About the Author
Lisa Endlich is a former vice-president and trader at Goldman Sachs.

Customer Reviews

Good for those who like all things Wall St.
I don't think anyone will be left guessing that Lisa Endlich was a very satisfied employee of Goldman Sachs! This is certainly not an objective, critical, investigative expose of Goldman. Rather, it is a subjective, friendly account of the company's admittedly very successful growth into one of the world's top investment banks. The "brilliance" of the management, the "skill" of the traders, the "undying devotion" to their customers; the superlatives go on and on. To be fair, given the company's success, the superlatives are not entirely inappropriate. However, some of Goldman's more dubious moments are almost whitewashed over. The Robt Maxwell affair? Poor Goldman was duped. The Ivan Boesky insider trading scandel? Robert Freeman was forced to make a guilty plea, etc. In the final analysis, it is not entirely sycophantic and is worth the read.

Hail, Goldman!
Unlike Liars Poker (in case anyone thought this might be something similar) this book does not provide a profound, humorous, ironical view of the investment banking industry. One wonders, why on earth did Endlich ever leave the firm? The book looks an application to rejoin! Boring.

A very good book on an average bank!
This book tell's the story of Goldman Sachs, a very good book for anyone interested in investment and trading history. However the writer is clearly influenced by having worked at Goldman Sachs, she does not manage to be objective. There are also some historical mistakes here, especially when a Goldman trader is credited with "inventing" the art of block trade, but overall a very well written and interesting story.