Bloomberg is reporting that Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) has cut dozens of investment banking jobs in the last few weeks, joining securities firms that are adjusting to a slowdown in trading volume and deal activity.
Goldman apparently eliminated eliminated dozens of senior positions including Managing Directors, Executive Directors and Vice Presidents across the mergers and debt and equity capital markets teams. The cuts affected bankers in cities including London, New York and Hong Kong.
The current layoffs are in addition to the bank’s annual 5% cull of employees deemed underperformers, according to Bloomberg.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, recovering from lymphoma and related chemo treatments, is embarking on his biggest cost-cutting push in years as the bank tries to weather a slump in trading and dealmaking. The job reductions follow a similar move in the firm’s trading division this year, driven in part by a 60% drop in first-quarter profit.
A spokesman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment to Bloomberg for the story.
Goldman Sachs’s cost-cutting hasn’t prevented pressure from investors. At the bank’s annual meeting in May, its compensation plan, including a pay package that made Blankfein the highest-paid chief executive officer of a Wall Street bank for his work last year, drew the most opposition since shareholders began voting on the matter in 2009.
Goldman hasn’t been cutting in all areas, however. The company is actively building its online presence, beginning with online retail bank GSBank.com.