Goldman Makes Biggest Investment Bank Leadership Changes in Decade -- Update

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is making the biggest changes in a decade to the leaders atop its investment-banking division, which advises companies on mergers and capital raises.

The firm promoted deal maker Gregg Lemkau and financing executive Marc Nachmann to join John Waldron as co-heads of the unit, according to people familiar with the matter.

Richard Gnodde, Mr. Waldron's counterpart in London, will relinquish his co-head title to focus on overseeing Goldman's international business. Mr. Nachmann will move to London. The other co-head position being filled had been vacated recently.

Goldman's investment-banking arm includes mergers-and-acquisitions advice as well as equity and debt underwriting. It is the firm's second-largest unit by revenue, with $6.3 billion last year, and has been riding a deal-making boom to higher profits over the past few years. Separately, Goldman elevated another deal maker, Francois-Xavier de Mallmann, to a senior role in London.

The promotions stem from a broader shake-up atop Goldman last year. After No. 2 executive Gary Cohn took a White House job, he was replaced by Chief Financial Officer Harvey Schwartz and senior investment banker David Solomon, whose seat atop that division is now being filled.

Mr. Lemkau, 47 years old, and Mr. Nachmann, 46, were added in late 2015 to Goldman's management committee, often a sign of bigger roles to come.

Mr. Lemkau has been a co-head of Goldman's M&A group since 2013. A technology and media banker by training, he has worked on deals including the sale of DirecTV to AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.'s takeover of Yahoo Inc., and helped lead Goldman's own early investments in technology companies such as Facebook Inc. and Spotify.

Mr. Lemkau comes from a finance family. A sister is chief marketing officer at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. His brother is a private banker at Goldman.

Mr. Nachmann, a native of Germany, has held various roles within the investment-banking division since joining Goldman in 1994. He has been deeply involved in the firm's hedging of commodities and caught the eye of superiors for a series of derivative transactions around the buyout of Texas utility Energy Futures Holding in 2007.

In 2014 he became head of Goldman's financing group, which helps companies issue equity and debt, and works closely with Goldman traders who buy and sell those same securities.

Mr. Nachmann is seen as a skilled internal operator. The gregarious Mr. Lemkau, a former Dartmouth soccer goalie who is an investor in Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle-blogging startup Goop, is more client-facing.

Mr. Nachmann's promotion leads a rejiggering of leadership in Goldman's financing division. The firm plans to promote Susie Scher, who runs its investment-grade debt group, and Pete Lyon, co-head of Goldman's stock-underwriting unit, to run the firm's financing efforts in the Americas, the people said.

Meanwhile, Christina Minnis, a senior leveraged-finance banker, will become head of acquisition finance, a newly created role, the people said. Goldman, which for decades has dominated the "sell-side" of the M&A business, has been trying to align itself more with buyers. That puts it in position for larger fees that come with arranging debt for takeovers.

The retirement of London executive Michael Sherwood at the end of last year left Mr. Gnodde as sole CEO of Goldman Sachs International, a role he will focus on now while remaining in London, the people said.

That business has grappled with the implications of Brexit, as well as a pair of embarrassing trials in London criticizing Goldman's advice to Libya's government and a British billionaire. Goldman, which spent $500 million on a new London headquarters, is likely to move jobs to offices throughout Europe.

Separately, Mr. de Mallmann, known as FX, will become a chairman of investment banking. That title typically comes with fewer operational responsibilities and a focus on courting clients, which for Mr. de Mallmann include big European consumer and retail companies.

Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2017 13:33 ET (17:33 GMT)