Goldman Sachs Group

Gap Inc. has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc., sources familiar with the matter said Monday, stoking investor hopes the struggling apparel retailer could be up for sale and sending its shares up as much as 11%. The two sources said Gap, with a market capitalization of more than $15 billion, hired Goldman last month, but it was unclear exactly what the bank was hired to do.

The fall of 2008 was a worrisome time, even for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wall Street's strongest investment bank, its chief executive said under oath. Testifying in a high-profile Wall Street criminal trial, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said he felt "very nervous" at the height of the financial crisis before the firm secured a $5-billion infusion from legendary investor Warren Buffett. Blankfein was called as a government witness in the federal insider-trading trial of Raj Rajaratnam, a former hedge fund manager accused of illegally profiting from confidential information about Goldman and a number of other companies during the crisis.

"I would characterize a Fed tightening as a flu shot. I think there could be some temporary discomfort until we all recognize that it really was a good idea." --Abby Joseph Cohen, chief U.S. strategist at Goldman Sachs Group, on the expected hike in interest rates next week by the Federal Reserve.

A national health insurer and its majority owners, Wall Street powerhouses Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Blackstone Group, were accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of defrauding their California customers with "junk insurance" that provided little or no protection. The suit filed by the Los Angeles city attorney's office alleges that HealthMarkets Inc. and its affiliates trained sales agents to deceive customers ? mostly self-employed individuals and small businesses ? into buying confusing policies riddled with exclusions and limitations.

Zagat Survey, the publisher of the burgundy-colored restaurant guides, hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to find a possible buyer. Tim and Nina Zagat, who founded the closely held business as a hobby in 1979, said they also were considering partnerships or joint ventures. Zagat might fetch at least $200 million, the New York Times said.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will win investor support for selling a portion of its 4.9% stake in the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China to raise more than $1 billion, two shareholders said. The New York company is mulling over a possible sale of the shares, valued at about $7.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

BrokerTec Global, an electronic bond brokerage owned by 14 Wall Street banks, said Friday that the Justice Department is investigating whether the company violated antitrust rules. BrokerTec confirmed it received a civil investigative demand from the Justice Department and said it has responded to the request and will continue to cooperate completely.

Wachovia Corp. agreed to buy back $9 billion of auction-rate securities as New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo increased pressure on Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to settle claims that they too misled investors in the bonds. Wachovia agreed to repurchase the securities and pay a $50-million fine to settle claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission and states including Missouri and New York. Cuomo said Merrill faced an "imminent" lawsuit from New York because the company's offer last week to buy back $10 billion of the debt wasn't satisfactory.

U.S. stocks ended higher on Tuesday, led by gains in shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc and strength in beaten-down homebuilders and raw materials companies. Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 75.53 points, or 0.74 percent, to end at 10,229.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 12.22 points, or 1.14 percent, at 1,083.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 24.26 points, or 1.10 percent, at 2,222.49.

Hit by a big government fine and difficult trading conditions, leading Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. saw its second-quarter profit plummet 82% from the year-earlier quarter. The bank said Tuesday that it earned $613 million, or 78 cents a share, compared with net income of $3.4 billion, or $4.93 a share, for last year's second quarter. Its revenue fell more than a third to $8.8 billion from $13.8 billion. Trading had been the engine of growth at all Wall Street banks over the last year.

U.S. stocks ended higher on Tuesday, led by gains in shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc and strength in beaten-down homebuilders and raw materials companies. Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 75.53 points, or 0.74 percent, to end at 10,229.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 12.22 points, or 1.14 percent, at 1,083.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 24.26 points, or 1.10 percent, at 2,222.49.

The $550-million deal between Goldman Sachs Group and federal regulators to settle the highest profile fraud case stemming from the financial crisis gave each side a measure of what it desperately needed. The government finally had an answer for critics who say Washington has been too soft on Wall Street. And Goldman Sachs could get on with making money, paying a fine that it can easily afford. Thursday's settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission came as Congress passed the most significant financial reform in decades — legislation designed to prevent the type of abuses Goldman was accused of. With the law, President Obama declared a new era of oversight for the financial industry.

Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Thursday defended the investment bank's aggressive pursuit of billions of dollars in payments from American International Group Inc. in 2008, which critics said added to the deep financial problems of the insurance giant and led to a $182-billion federal bailout. Goldman and AIG sparred over the value of mortgage bonds behind complex financial derivatives for more than a year before the government rescued AIG in September 2008, executives from the two companies told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., already under fire for its actions leading up to the financial crisis, came under attack from a federal commission that accused it of refusing to divulge information, including documents detailing its controversial bets on the mortgage market. Saying it had been stonewalled, the federal commission investigating the financial crisis on Monday took the unusual step of issuing a subpoena to Goldman that demanded information about the investment bank's role before and during the mortgage meltdown and credit crunch.

The investigation that has been focused on Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is widening to include questionable business practices of several other major banks. New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed eight banks and three ratings firms late Wednesday, seeking information on how the banks may have tried to influence the ratings of mortgage-backed securities that eventually lost value with the housing market collapse. The banks on Thursday confirmed receiving the subpoenas and said they would cooperate.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s traders made money every day of the first quarter, a feat the firm has never accomplished before. Daily trading net revenue was $25 million or higher in all of the first quarter's 63 trading days, New York-based Goldman Sachs reported in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The firm reaped more than $100 million on 35 of the days, or more than half the time. Goldman Sachs, which is facing a fraud lawsuit from the SEC related to the sale of a mortgage-linked security in 2007, generated $9.74 billion in trading revenue in the first quarter, exceeding all of its Wall Street competitors.

Shareholders of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. overwhelmingly supported their embattled chairman and chief executive Friday, rejecting calls to split his job in two in the wake of government accusations that the company defrauded some clients. More than 80% of those voting at the annual shareholders meeting sank the proposal even as critics took on top boss Lloyd C. Blankfein over the company's questionable securities sales and pushed for more diversity on its board and in its senior management.