The results come in a quarter that has seen Goldman Sachs make a number of transactions, such as the sale of the United Capital wealth business.

Goldman Sachs, which recently offloaded the United Capital wealth business it bought in 2019, yesterday reported that its net asset and wealth revenues fell by 20 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter.

The US group said, however, that its Q3 2023 revenues rose 6 per cent on the preceding quarter of 2023.

Goldman Sachs said the revenue drop primarily reflected net losses in equity investments, partly offset by higher management and other fees.

The firm has made a number of deals, spinning off businesses, selling loans and pivoting its busines on several fronts. (See an analysis of the United Capital transaction from our US correspondent, Charles Paikert.) Last week, it also sold its GreenSky fintech platform and associated loan portfolio.

Private banking and lending net revenues were slightly higher as the impact of higher deposit balances and spreads were largely offset by the impact of the sale of substantially all the Marcus loans portfolio earlier in the year. (In July, the firm announced that it had sold $1 billion in personal loans from its Marcus retail unit.)

For the whole Goldman Sachs group, net earnings for Q3 2023 were $2.06 billion, down from $3.07 billion, and since the start of January, were $6.51 billion.

Net revenues were $11.82 billion for the third quarter of 2023, essentially unchanged compared with the third quarter of 2022 and 8 per cent higher than the second quarter of 2023, the New York-listed group said in a statement. 

“We continue to make significant progress executing on our strategic priorities and we’re confident that the work we’re doing now provides us a much stronger platform for 2024. I also expect a continued recovery in both capital markets and strategic activity if conditions remain conducive,” David Solomon, chief executive, said in a statement. 

Goldman Sachs had a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – a standard international measure of a bank’s capital buffer – of 14.8 per cent at the end of September, and a leverage ratio of 6.5 per cent.