Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein to step down as CEO, report claims

'It's the @WSJ's announcement...not mine,' Mr Blankein says in a tweet following the news. 'I feel like Huck Finn listening to his own eulogy.'

Lloyd Blankfein has led the Wall Street bank through some of its most turbulent times (AP)

The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, will step down as the investment bank’s chief executive by the end of the year, according to a report.

Mr Blankfein, 63, has spent 12 years at the helm of one of the most prominent financial institutions in the world and is among the longest-serving bosses on Wall Street, having helped navigate Goldman through the 2007-08 financial crisis.

The news came in a report by The Wall Street Journal, which – citing people familiar with the matter – said Mr Blankfein would retire ahead of or early in Goldman’s 150th anniversary year in 2019. But later, the CEO appeared to dismiss the announcement in a tweet, comparing himself to Huckleberry Finn.

“It’s the @WSJ’s announcement...not mine,” he wrote on Twitter. “I feel like Huck Finn listening to his own eulogy.”

Mr Blankfein has outlasted several calls for his departure, even as Goldman was publicly vilified and chastised in Washington for the bank’s role in the mortgage meltdown. He also remained CEO while receiving treatment for cancer.

On his watch, the bank ended up paying $550m, one of the largest penalties ever paid by a Wall Street firm, to the federal government to settle claims that it had misled investors about subprime mortgages, a type of loan granted to individuals with poor credit scores. Goldman did not admit to wrongdoing.

Mr Blankfein has worked to rehabilitate the company and its image, but it has still not regained its once dominant position on Wall Street.

Goldman is not looking beyond presidents and co-chief operating officers Harvey Schwartz and David Solomon to replace him, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The two men were promoted to their current positions in December 2016. It follows a typical succession plan pattern at the Wall Street bank, which tends to name two or three people into co-head roles until one of them proves to be the right choice for further promotion

Mr Schwartz, 53, had been a co-head of trading for several years before being named chief financial officer in 2012. Mr Solomon, 56, had been a co-head of investment banking.

Goldman’s former chief operating officer, Gary Cohn, had waited in the wings for years to succeed Mr Blankfein as CEO. But he left the bank last year to join the Trump administration as Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser.

Mr Cohn announced this week that he is resigning from his White House post, without saying what he plans to do next.

The last time the top job at Goldman opened up, in 2006, there was less suspense about who would assume the role of CEO, the Journal said. Mr Blankfein was sole successor-in-waiting to Hank Paulson, who left to become US Treasury Secretary.

A departure by Mr Blankfein would conclude his 36-year career at Goldman. He is the son of a postal worker who grew up in a Brooklyn housing estate. In 1982, he quit his job as a tax lawyer and joined the bank’s commodities group as a gold salesman, proceeding to work his from the trading desk to the top and becoming a billionaire in the process.

Last year, he used his first ever tweet to make a jab at Mr Trump, joining US corporate leaders in responding to the president’s decision to ditch the Paris climate accord.

Mr Blankfein labelled the move a “setback for the environment and for the US’s leadership position in the world.” Mr Trump has said leaving the accord would save money and jobs.

He underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma more than two years ago and confirmed that he was cancer-free in October 2016.

Mr Blankfein said during an interview last year that he wanted to leave Goldman “stronger than it was when I found it”.

Reuters contributed to this report