Morning Coffee: Goldman Sachs' thoughtful, weakened, president on the importance of a "magnificent" wife. Bill Ackman's bravado

John Waldron may never be CEO of Goldman Sachs. As we reported in February, after threatening to resign, Waldron has allegedly been sidelined for the top job as the stars of people like Marc Nachmann, Dan Dees and Ashok Varadhan rise instead. This seems a shame. In a talk with students at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Waldron comes across as gently philosophical and willing to go against the grain. 

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He didn't think he'd stay in banking. "I thought I was going to be a writer," he says. "I had absolutely no intention of staying beyond the first few years." That was 30 years ago. Suddenly you wake up and you're 50. "You’re wondering, How did that happen so quickly?"

Waldron began his career at Bear Stearns, where he was an analyst in investment banking and met David Solomon, Goldman's current CEO.  He joined Goldman in 2000 and became co-head of the investment banking division in 2015 and president and COO in 2018. 

Early in his career, Waldron says he had little flexibility over his time. Upon reflection, he says he could have done things differently: he was in a hurry and didn't "stop to smell the roses." There's value in all life stages, says Waldron: "young career, single, friends, married life, early-married life with no kids, then married life with young kids, and married life with older kids...Every one of those moments is quite special and interesting."

Like Dan Dees, the co-head of banking and markets who might now pip him to the CEO role, Waldron has a lot of children. When you have six offspring, he says it's hard to make time for them all individually, but that he tries to do this by walking them to school on their own, reading them stories on their own, getting them to talk to him. When he's with them, Waldron says he puts his devices away. "They have often said, 'You’re here, but you’re not really here',” he explains.

While Solomon is divorced, Waldron credits his success to his wife and to "what we’re trying to achieve together: a fairly ambitious career and a really close, tight, family-oriented life." She's "magnificent," he says: "When you get married, the most important thing is to find someone who will really be your partner through the ups and downs and will understand you and really stand by you and have you stand by them."

Waldron seems to bring tolerance and patience from his home life to work. Most people aren't listeners, he says. It's important to know how to "disagree respectfully," to "bridge divides" and to "learn from other people's perspectives." - "One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is to change your mind after considering others’ input."

Waldron's recommendation for getting ahead at Goldman combines hard work and dedication with this gentle assertiveness and assimilation of ideas. "I’m still practising that skill of sitting around a table with very strong-willed people and trying to convince them that the direction I would like to go is the right direction. It’s a skill that you can develop in your career that will serve you incredibly well," he adds. 

Separately, someone who doesn't seem quite so tolerant and open to assimilation is Bill Ackman, the anti-woke hedge fund manager who's endeavouring an IPO of a listed closed-end fund, Pershing Square USA Ltd. Not long ago, the FT notes that Ackman was trying to raise $25bn for the fund. Now, that's down to $2.5bn-$4bn.

Ackman had hoped that his celebrity presence on X might bring in the dollars. It's an approach that seems to have worked for another fund that he's listed in Amsterdam. In the US, though, it seems that there are worries about "key man risk" and over-exposure to Ackman himself. It doesn't help that Ackman wants the stock in his new fund to trade above the value of the stocks that the fund owns. Semafor notes that this rarely happens, even if George Soros did once pull it off in the 1980s. 

Meanwhile...

Citi's latest fine was linked to problems with its commercial loan files which regularly contained errors, such as incorrect maturity dates, collateral information or even the size of loans, issues that had direct bearing on examiners’ ability to evaluate the bank’s soundness. (Financial Times) 

Aspiring bankers in Singapore are delaying graduation to stack up internships even though they have to pay more school fees. “It’s worth it in the long run. The job market is tough now so this has given me a starting point for my career.” (Bloomberg)  

UBS is happy with its Credit Suisse integration in Asia. “We are strong in Australia, China and Japan, whereas Credit Suisse is well connected in Korea and Southeast Asia. The merger helps us diversify and hedge among different economies.” (Bloomberg) 

More than 20 Spacs have filed IPO documents since the start of June, targeting a combined $4.3bn in fundraising. That compares with just $1.8bn raised in the entire second half of 2023. (Financial Times) 

Barclays is now fifth in the revenue table for prime broking. (Reuters) 

Smaller private credit shops are being squeezed. (Semafor)  

Bank of America named Eddie Martin head of leveraged finance for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He replaces Rahul Srinivasan, who was announced as chief financial officer at Spanish pharmaceutical company Grifols earlier in July. (Financial News)

Moelis & Co has hiked pay by 23% this year. The bank had 161 managing directors at the end of June, up from 142 senior dealmakers in 2022. (Financial News) 

Michael Agaisse, a senior G10 foreign exchange spot trader at Barclays has left. (FX-markets) 

Deutsche Bank's latest lawsuit is linked to its takeover of Germany’s Postbank, which it completed 14 years and four CEOs ago. Former shareholders claim they were underpaid in the final stages of the progressive acquisition. Deutsche decided to put aside the maximum amount against costs it could possibly face. That provision pushed the bank into its first quarterly net loss attributable to shareholders since the second quarter of 2020. (Bloomberg) 

Workers at Bank were evacuated after a huge fire in a restaurant kitchen. (Evening Standard) 

Ken Griffin bought a waterfront estate in St. Tropez. (WSJ) 

In the year that JD Vance worked at VC firm Mithril, a former colleague said he never once saw him in the office. Another colleague said he remembers seeing Vance at the office, although he did travel a lot to promote his memoir. Neither remembered significant deals that Vance drove during his time at Mithril. (WSJ)

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