The Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is holding its first-ever board meeting in the country, amid reports that the management has more or less decided to split the roles of chairman and chief executive.
The closed-door meeting, being held in the Presidential Suite of the iconic Taj Mahal Hotel in the heart of the Maximum City, as this is for the first in its 142-year-old history that the once-famed Wall Street giant is holding its board meeting in the country, and joins the likes of PepsiCo and a few other multinationals which had held their board meeting here in the recent past.
The entire top management of the embattled investment bank is on a three-day sojourn into the country, beginning Mumbai today and moving into Delhi tomorrow.
The India meeting completes the New York-based i-banker’s BRIC focus as it had in the past conducted board meeting in the other three nations — Brazil, Russia and China.
Significantly, it was a Goldman top dog, Mr Jim O’Neill, who termed the term BRIC early 2000. Mr O’Neill is currently the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
The chairman of the world’s largest steel company Arcellor Mittal, the India-born, Mr L.N. Mittal, who is on the board of the Goldman. is also reportedly present at the meeting, apart from the harried Chairman and CEO Lloyd, Mr C. Blankfein, Chief Operating Officer, Mr Gary Cohn, and other top dogs of the fifth largest American bank by assets.
The company could not be reached for any comments on this meeting as repeated e-mails to Goldman India head, Mr Sonjoy Chatterjee, went unanswered.
The meeting assumes importance as this is a signal to the investment bank’s commitment to this fast-growing market, which revolves around the emerging markets like India, China, Russia and Brazil.
According to sources, after the board meeting, the Goldman team is scheduled to fly into the Capital to meet up the political leadership and would also host a dinner for them.
The once pre-eminent investment banker has been in bad news since the 2008 financial crisis, with the latest tirade against it being an ex-employee open criticism of the blood sucking nature of its business and management style.
Goldman India is into fixed income, economic and investment research and offshore asset management services, apart from investment banking businesses, with its M&A business being the second largest in the country last year, while its equity capital markets division was the ninth.