Goldman Sachs : The Culture of Success - Softcover

Endlich, Lisa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684869683 ISBN 13: 9780684869681

Publisher: Touchstone, 2000

Synopsis

Former Goldman Sachs Vice President Lisa Endlich draws on an insider’s knowledge to bring to life this unique company and the most stunning accomplishments in modern American finance.

The history, mystique, and remarkable success of Goldman Sachs, the world’s premier investment bank, are examined in unprecedented depth in this fascinating and authoritative study.

The firm’s spectacular ascent is traced in the context of its tenacious grip on its core values. Endlich shows how close client contact, teamwork, focus on long-term profitability rather than short-term opportunism, and the ability to recruit consistently some of the most talented people on Wall Street helped the firm generate a phenomenal $3 billion in pretax profits in 1997. And she describes in detail the monumental events of 1998 that shook Goldman Sachs and the financial world.

This is a rare and revealing look inside a great institution—the last private partnership on Wall Street—and inside the financial world at its highest levels.

About this title

Review:

Goldman Sachs brings you inside the rarefied boardrooms of one of the most secretive Wall Street banking giants. Begun by a German immigrant in the late 1800s as a small family-run business, Goldman Sachs rose to become the world's top investment bank in the 1990s, even without selling stock to the public. It attracted some of the best talent in the business and cultivated an image of superiority and exclusivity. "The Goldman Sachs mystique was born of secrecy and success. Nothing like it exists on Wall Street," writes the author, Lisa Endlich, a former vice president at the firm. But behind that mystique lie tales of being swindled by British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, multimillion-dollar losses on bad trades, and the on-again, off-again attempts to go public. The book begins and ends with the firm's efforts to go public and get greater access to capital. Most other brokerages are already publicly traded, but internecine conflict and financial turmoil always seem to prevent Goldman from joining the action. In September 1998, for instance, Goldman stunned investors when it dropped plans for a stock offering amid a plunge in the market. A management shakeup soon followed. Goldman Sachs is an intriguing history of the company that invented such financial tools as block trading, commercial paper, and risk arbitrage. The book can sometimes be critical, but is largely a favorable portrait by a former employee. --Dan Ring

From the Publisher:

"An engrossing, literate, and fair-minded study of America's premier investment house...Endlich is intelligent, insightful, and sensitive to the issues involved. And she was there...An excellent book."--E. William Smethurst Jr., Chicago Tribune

"The first meaningful look inside one of America's most important institutions."--James Surowiecki, Newsday

About this edition

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0684869683
• ISBN 13: 9780684869681
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344