Hi. I’m Aaron Weinman. Today I want to highlight a deep dive about Marcus. This is Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs’ foray onto Main Street.
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1. High turnover, tensions between executives, and mounting losses at Goldman Sachs’ Marcus have stifled the bank’s efforts to encroach on Main Street. It’s fast becoming a defining moment for Chief Executive David Solomon.
Executives had grand plans for Marcus — an online bank, named after founder Marcus Goldman, that offers high-yield savings accounts. Marcus was set up as a standalone entity with a popcorn machine and denim-wearing employees — a nod to the informal startup culture evident in places like Silicon Valley.
Despite the forward-thinking initiative, Solomon has grown increasingly frustrated as Goldman’s share price did not seemingly reflect the promise of building a digital, consumer bank.
Analysts have also argued that management teams — who are sometimes too close to a project — grow enamored by its potential without seeing the same risks that investors might. And when you have the bank account of Goldman Sachs, it’s easy to continually throw money at a loss-making exercise, compared to a startup that needs to source third-party capital.
Now, five years since it launched, Marcus is burning cash with little sign of a profit. Executives expect it to lose another $1.2 billion this year.
The ballooning expenses have frustrated Goldman’s No. 2, President and Chief Operating Officer John Waldron, who now holds regular meetings with Marcus leadership to discuss how to get costs down.
For the full story, check out this feature from Insider’s Chief Finance Correspondent Dakin Campbell.
ICYMI – here’s more on Marcus:
In other news:
2. Shopify funded lavish team getaways to a French castle and other far-flung locales. This all just weeks before the e-commerce company blindsided workers with layoffs.
3. Elon Musk sold 7.92 million Tesla shares worth almost $6.9 billion. Musk said he could need the funds if he loses the legal battle with Twitter and is forced to buy the social media platform for $44 billion. Musk, who is now left with a 15% stake in the electric car maker, explained his action in a late tweet Tuesday.
4. OlympusDAO once paid 7,000% interest on its token, but now it’s being sued by a backer. A 22-year-old business major from Weston, Connecticut, is behind one of crypto’s most notorious projects, according to a lawsuit seeking $791 million.
5. Titan, the investing startup backed by Kevin Durant and Will Smith, is looking to buy another fintech. Joe Percoco, the firm’s co-chief executive, details how struggling startups will be looking for an exit in the coming months, and he talked about Titan’s plans for more hiring.
6. Citi is hiring a decentralized finance and stablecoin risk manager as part of its push into crypto. The US bank also plans to hire up to 100 folks to build out a digital assets division that will sit within Citi’s institutional client group, The Block reported.
7. Europe’s bond market is enduring its worst drought in dealmaking for at least eight years, according to Bloomberg. The market has seen 32 days without a single public-debt offering from governments or corporations.
8. Carlyle’s billionaire founders had had enough of their chosen successor, Kewsong Lee. Tensions mounted for months before his resignation, per this story from Bloomberg. Also, you can listen to me on The Refresh from Insider discussing Kewsong’s exit.
9. Private-equity firms have morphed from corporate raiders to teams of rivals. The industry was founded by dealmakers who fiercely competed with their rivals, but today, they are nuanced, complex relationships, according to this feature from the Financial Times.
10. Chronic-gut-health startup Salvo Health just got $10.5 million in “supergiant” seed money. Here’s the pitch deck the company used to net the funding.
Done deals:
- Lithium miner Wealth Minerals has signed an agreement with thyssenkrupp Mining Technologies. Under the terms, the pair will develop the Ollagüe Salar Lithium exploration project in northern Chile.
- Blackstone has acquired the outstanding shares of student-housing manager American Campus Communities for about $12.8 billion, including debt. Bank of America and KeyBanc Capital markets advised ACC, and Dentons was its legal counsel. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, SMBC, and TSB Capital Advisors advised Blackstone, while Simpson Thacher & Bartlett was its legal counsel.
Curated by Aaron Weinman in New York. Tips? Email aweinman@insider.com or tweet @aaronw11. Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.
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