Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. I'm joined by Richardaldo, the newly promoted vice chairman of Goldman Sachs. Richard, first of all, good morning, thank you so much for joining us. But look, a change of job, a change of title. How do you feel about it?
I feel fantastic for the overall firm. It's a hugely exciting and energizing time. If I put into a broader context, you, if I think about twenty twenty three, twenty Forard is really nailing the firm's strategy, which we've really got set. You're putting in the organizational structure, but of course people is the most important thing here, and we've now put in place a broad set of leaders that can really take this forward, execute and deliver over the next five to
ten years. And so that's what this is part of. For myself, Yeah, I've given up my CEO responsibilities for GSI, but I'm thrilled to have the remit to really operate broadly around the world and spend time with our people, our clients, and I'm I'm very excited about the next next period of time.
So what's the one thing that Goldman has to do now? Is it talent retention more than actually getting strategy right, which actually has proven to be the right thing to do.
Yeah, we've just got to we've got to have the right people, and we've got to have the right culture. And if we get people in culture right, Goldman Sacks will continue to be a great firm. And so we focus on that day in and day out. We invest in it. This is part of that investment. The other thing I'd say is here we focus so much on making sure that we've got a deep bench. But there's no point in having a deep bench if you don't use it. And this is an example of us really
using that bench and bringing the next generation off. And there's going to be a huge amount of energy and our clients will feel it, our people will feel it. It's an exciting time.
Are you expecting to also hire a lot more given all of the animal spirits that could be unlocked in the US? And what does it mean for the rest of the world, including Europe?
Well, you know, we always try and modulate this. It's easy to get carried away. None of us can predict the future. Yeah, we all know how it feels right now. If you're sitting here and you're talking to someone from the US, it's huge optimism and enthusiasm. If you're talking to someone from Europe, it's a little bit less the case. And so we try and hire with a longer term view. These are long term careers. We're not bringing people in for the next twelve months. We're bringing people in for
a career. So hiring in at the bottom continues to be hugely important. We do that whatever the cycle is. But of course you know we're adding all the time to our organization. The organization is growing.
I haven't one single person almost that's really optimistic about the UK or Europe.
Are you No, The mood's not good. I mean my takeaway would be and we all know the numbers, so there's no point or need to rehearse them. Now. The sentiment across you know, the big cap the big name European industrial companies, you know that CEO community, there's an increasing level of frustration because obviously they can see what's happening in the US. Frankly, a lot of them are investing significant dollars into the US, that's where the money's going.
But they also want to invest and grow and build in the European economy, and so there's an increasing sense of frustration, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see that community broadly becoming much more assertive, assertive with the regulatory framework, assertive in Brussels, in their own domestic capitals, and really leaning in because I think that everybody knows what the program needs to be. But I think people are done with the talking. People really want to try
and push this into action. And if there is no response from the discussions, then once and I said, we'll see more assertion going forward, I suspect.
How do you see client behavior? Are they going to spend more money? Are Europeans and international investors just going to be spending more money in the US or are they staying put for the moment until they figure out what happens.
Both things are happening, so you the opportunity and the returns are obviously they're in the US. And you know, we've seen the activity of this week. That's only going to encourage that behavior. So we'll continue to see capital flowing in that direction. But look, Europe is a very very large and significant economy and people want to participate here, so I think we will see more restructure, We'll see more consolidation. There's a real need across Europe to build
global champions of scale that can compete globally. Certainly in our backlog and our client discussions, your EMINE activity, big strategic transactions. You know, we're seeing frankly as much of that as I can remember. So I think things are going to things are going to move.
A credit credit what's your ambition there?
Well, as you know, we've got about one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty billion dollars of private credit sitting in our alternative asset management business and we aim to double that. We want to get that through three hundred billion, and then we'll take it from there. This is a This is a really important source of financing for our client base and they will continue to use it.
We obviously managing that alternative asset platform for investors. But if you're a user, if you're a corporate, you can go to the bank market, you can go to the public credit markets, and you can go to the private cre and having that choice is important. It all ties into the capital market union concept in Europe. We need to develop these markets, We need to develop the securitization market. Let's see what gets done.
I mean, what do you think Donald Trump's administration will unlock in terms of you know, crypto. Are you going to see really big deregulation which would also probut private markets?
Yeah. All I can say is if you if you're an entrepreneur and you're getting out of bed in the United States this week, you are full of optimism and energy and whatever your chosen field. It may be crypto, it maybe fracking, it maybe just starting a business. You're going to be optimistic that you can drive something forward. So I wouldn't isolate it sector by sector. I think the energy will be contagious and it will be contagious across all parts of that economy. And I think that's
what we're going to see. Now. We can't predict the future, as I said, so let's see how all of this plays out. Obviously, the markets themselves have anticipated a lot of this last year. The US market up twenty percent, was up twenty percent the year before. That market's not going to grow twenty percent year in year out, So you know, we need to have some sense of moderation in terms of where the market is. But the underlying energy across the economy. The economic growth, you know, plus
two percent? Does it get to three percent? Time will tell, But there's a lot of energy then.
I mean there seems too you know, equities are price of perfection in the US. Should that be a worry when there's a lot of talk about inflation being a concern for the Fed.
Well, it's judge perfection with hindsight. It depends what happens. Maybe they're priced with perfection, maybe they're not. But obviously rates are a huge focus. You know, we've seen one hundred racist points of road cuts over the last twelve months. You know, we expect another fifty this year, maybe another twenty five and twenty twenty six. But the data is going to determine how that plays out. And obviously, if the economy is running really hot, that's going to be
more difficult to have those red cuts here. The tariff discussion, we'll see how that plays out. If that is on the margin inflationary again, that'll make it more difficult for redcuts. There's a lot in front of us, and so the range of outcomes is as broad as it's ever been here. And I think if the left tail and the right tail you know, they're long and they're fatter than they've been. So I think one needs to be forward leaning the
windows that you're back. But I think you need to be a risk manager at the second time and be looking left and right and make sure that you know you're anticipating all the potential outcomes. They're all possible.
Is that your biggest concern is kind of bifurcation or trying to understand, you know, the positive and the negative.
That's our job, you know, our job is to be ready for whatever the outcome is going to be, and we advise our clients in that way. We manage our own risks in that way because, as we said a couple of times in this discussion, the future is hard to predict.
In terms of the announcements that we've had, I think you've doubled the management committee. If you look at the numbers, more women would probably be welcome. What's the secret sauce on that.
Yeah, we continue to drive those initiatives. You're absolutely right, it's a huge priority for the organization. Our most recent partner class, which we announced at the end of last year, in our European partner group, actually thirty eight percent of that class was women. It was the highest number ever globally. It was in the high twenties. We would love to
have more representation on the management committee. We will get more representation on the management committee, and we're pushing people forward. And I think if you if you look beyond the management Committee and some of the recent announcements, you know there are a lot of very very important jobs. You know, we shore going to women the leadership bench. There is growing in a very very good way. We'd all like it to go faster.
Thank you so much for joining us, Richard Nade. They are the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs