The Goldman Sachs group has commenced an offering of $5 billion of its common stock to the public. The underwriter – Goldman Sachs itself in this case - will have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15 per cent of the offered amount of common stock from the company to cover over-allotments, if any.

The bank has already said that after the completion of the regulator’s stress assessment, if permitted by supervisors and if supported by the results of the stress assessment, it wants to use the capital raised plus additional resources to redeem all the Troubled Asset Relief Programme capital.

If it succeeds, Goldman would be the first major US bank to pay back TARP funds and would free itself from restraints on compensation and business activities imposed by regulators.

The repayment announcement came as the bank reported first quarter net revenues of $9.43 billion and net earnings of $1.81 billion. Diluted earnings per common share were $3.39, compared with £3.23 for the first quarter ended 29 February 2008 and a diluted loss per common share of $4.97 for the fourth quarter ended 28 November 2008.

Goldman Sachs' Tier 1 Ratio (under Basel II) was 16 per cent at the end of the first quarter of 2009, up from 15.6 per cent as of 28 November 2008. Institutions around the world have been trying to improve their capital strength in recent months.

Asset management revenues were $949 million in Q1, 28 per cent lower than the first quarter of 2008. This was due to lower management and other fees, reflecting lower assets under management, principally due to market depreciation and lower incentive fees, the bank said.

During this year's first quarter, assets under management decreased $27 billion to $771 billion, due to $16 billion of depreciation, primarily in equity assets, and $11 billion of net outflows.