Illustration by Topos Graphics
By Christine HarperFor Goldman Sachs (GS) Special Situations Group corporate disasters can be a source of some of the greatest benefits of the Bank. The undercover operation, which invests in debt and equity of troubled companies and loans to high-risk borrowers, now faces its own potential calamity. The group, known as SSG, could be put out of business by the new rules in the financial reform act, Dodd-Frank seeking to curb exclusive trading by banks.
Goldman Sachs has already provoked two units, which makes Paris with money from the firm because these transactions by banks will be prohibited by the Volcker rule, named after Paul a. Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Despite this, GSU continues to make investments and appointed a new global leader last month. Executives of the Bank based in New York, including Chief Financial Officer David a. Viniar, argued that GSU should not be affected because it is more a loan to a commercial enterprise. "He is the owner of trade, but the company can also be modified if you were," said Brad Hintz, a Sanford c. Bernstein analyst, New York. The question, he said, is "where are the regulators draw the line?".
Although the results of the SSG are not published, the unit has been a contributor major profit at Goldman Sachs – the largest during certain periods, according to former executives observer who asked not be identified, because they do not want to speak publicly of their former employer. Investment and loan, which includes SSG, exclusive business ventures and investments in hedge funds and equity, generated 32 per cent of Goldman 2010 pretax profit, almost twice the profits derived from banking and combined investment money, according to the reports of the company.
Created in the late 1990s, SSG buys assets rotten following the financial crisis in Asia and has benefited from the bankruptcy of Enron, a former employee said. A gain on an investment Accordia Golf, more great operator of the Japan golf course, contributed about $ 500 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. Without the benefits of the GSU, analysts say, Goldman Sachs would find it difficult to match its historical returns. The annualised return on average common shareholders Bank was 13.1% in the fourth quarter of 2010, down from 41.5% during the same period in 2006, company reports show.
Few investments of the GSU are public, making it difficult to know what made the division. GSU is almost never mentioned in publications or regulatory deposits of Goldman Sachs, and Viniar is not speak on this subject the quarterly conference calls except if requested. "Well, it's a group who you speak more than we do," Viniar said on December 16, 2008, in response, a motion by Glenn Schorr and then an analyst at UBS (UBS).
Special Group of invest Situations, a legal entity who holds debt investments by SSG, has been included among the creditors on a forbearance agreement on 5 January with lenders by Sbarro, a chain of pizza based in Melville, New York and owned by the company of private equity MidOcean Partners. The Bank was not an original lender Sbarro, according to two members of the syndicate of lenders who have requested not be identified because they were not allowed to speak. While Goldman Sachs appear between creditors on two more recent agreements, including a deposit, of March 3, a person familiar farm with the investments of the GSU says that unity still has debt Sbarro. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, said that he could not comment on the investments of the GSU.
Richard M. Ruzika, 51, a former Goldman Sachs recruit products business leader and one-time New York Jets, led SSG since 2007. He is retiring from the company at the end of April, according to a memo February 17 obtained by Bloomberg News. Jason M. Brown, a Briton who leads SSG Asia since 2007, will replace him and remain in Hong Kong, said a separate memorandum.
The future of Brown unit will depend on how strictly the Volcker rule is interpreted. The provision seeks to compel the banks receiving government support, such as deposit insurance, and access to funds from the Fed, to Paris which could produce significant losses. It would also be limited to the investment in hedge funds and funds. The Fed and other bank regulatory agencies must implement the Volcker rule in effect in October.
There are questions without response that could leave an opening for GSU, say analysts and legal experts, including Roberta Karmel, a former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which teaches today in Brooklyn in New York law school. Goldman Sachs said that the purchase of debt renders the division a lender not a trader? If the Unit holds its investments for months or years, did they cease to qualify as exclusive commercial, because the company is not seeks to "profit from short-term price movements," as say regulatory guidelines? "These laws are too complicated, and they can find faults, says Karmel." "I don't know how strictly the regulators will be able to define proprietary trading".
On a call with analysts on October 19, Viniar has stated that the Volcker rule would not affect SSG because "the predominant part of this business is really a loan case, which we believe is not that only O.K. under the rules, but is in fact something that is encouragéparce that it helps of course." to economic growth. ?
Purchase of debt on the secondary market seems not like credits James d. Cox, Professor at the school of law, Duke University in Durham, N.C. "I is difficult to think that they are just like the Bank of corner lending money to someone in financial distress," says cox. "This looks like more that it is of any other activity, and it should be subject to the requirements Volcker."
The bottom line: The survival of the Special Situations of Goldman Sachs Group depends on how strictly regulators interpret the Volcker rule.
Harper is a journalist for Bloomberg News.
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