Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon made a troublesome determination to chop about 3,200 jobs final month.
Does he have any regrets? Sure. He needs he had carried out it sooner, apparently.
“Because the surroundings was rising extra sophisticated in Q2 of final yr, each bone in my physique believed we needs to be way more aggressive in slowing hiring and lowering headcount,” Solomon stated Sunday at a closed-door gathering with about 400 Goldman Sachs companions in Miami, in response to the Monetary Occasions.
The financial institution noticed web income tumble by practically half in 2022 in comparison with the yr earlier than. It’s been scrambling to chop prices, with companion bonuses taking successful and using personal jets coming underneath scrutiny.
On what got here to be identified internally as “David’s Demolition Day,” a big quantity staff have been let go on Jan. 11. Some staff have been fired after displaying up for what they thought was a routine assembly, for which they’d been emailed a calendar invite.
Solomon reportedly stated in Miami that the layoffs and cost-cutting would have been much less extreme had he acted sooner, and he took duty for not transferring quicker.
Solomon has taken warmth for residing a glamorous life amid the financial institution’s woes, main some Goldman Sachs insiders to query his deal with main the corporate. Along with hobnobbing with celebrities and taking personal jets to the Bahamas, he’s identified to DJ for dwell audiences as DJ D-SOL at golf equipment and occasions around the globe.
The board introduced final month that Solomon’s pay for 2022 was $25 million. That was down 29% from 2021, however companions as a bunch noticed their bonuses slashed in half.
Some Goldman Sachs insiders are restive and have mentioned who may change Solomon, in response to Insider. That hasn’t been helped The Economist operating a canopy story entitled “The humbling of Goldman Sachs” a number of weeks in the past.
In the meantime many employees who have been laid off final month acquired no bonus, a significant chunk of worker pay at Goldman Sachs.
“I used to be actually trying ahead to that bonus… That may have helped me with a few of my bills with college and issues of that nature that I’m presently paying for,” a former analyst at Goldman’s Salt Lake Metropolis workplace advised Fortune. “Everyone deserves to get their bonus. Whether or not you have been laid off or not, you deserve it.”
Fortune has reached out to Goldman Sachs for remark.
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