Investment banking, the business run globally by Richard J. Gnodde, David M. Solomon and John S. Weinberg, posted $1.41 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, up 64 percent from a year earlier. For the full year, revenue rose 13 percent to $4.93 billion. The investment banking transaction backlog, an estimate of future revenue from incomplete assignments, was higher at the end of 2012 than the end of the third quarter and Dec. 31, 2011.
Takeover Advice
Financial-advisory revenue, including fees for takeover advice, advanced 8 percent to $508 million in the fourth quarter and was down 1 percent to $1.98 billion in the full year. The firm’s mergers-and-acquisitions business, overseen by Gene T. Sykes, ranked first among advisers on global takeovers announced in 2012, the same rank it held in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Revenue from underwriting, a business led by Stephen M. Scherr, climbed 132 percent to $897 million in the fourth quarter and rose 25 percent to $2.95 billion in the full year. Debt underwriting fees were $593 million in the quarter, up from $196 million a year earlier, and advanced 53 percent to $1.96 billion for the year. Goldman Sachs was seventh among corporate bond underwriters in 2012, the same as a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Equity underwriting revenue climbed 59 percent to $304 million in the fourth quarter, and declined 9 percent to $987 million for the year. Goldman Sachs, which held the top spot among arrangers of global equity, equity-linked and rights offerings in 2011, dropped to second place after Morgan Stanley in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Revenue from asset management rose 20 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.52 billion and was up 4 percent to $5.22 billion for 2012. Total assets under management increased $26 billion during the quarter to $854 billion.
Bloomberg
