Goldman Sachs Profit Drops 82%, Missing Estimates
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said second-quarter profit dropped 82 percent, missing analysts' estimates on a slide in trading revenue, five days after settling U.S. regulators' fraud allegations. Revenue and profit were the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008.
Net income fell to $613 million, or 78 cents a share, from $3.44 billion, or $4.93, a year earlier, New York-based Goldman Sachs said in a statement today. The average estimate of 21 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for earnings of $1.99 per share, with estimates ranging from 77 cents to $4.34. Some of the analysts didn't include costs of the settlement.
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs's chairman and chief executive officer, is working to restore the firm's reputation after agreeing to pay $550 million to settle the Securities and Exchange Commission's fraud accusations. The bank's bigger competitors, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., last week also reported lower trading revenue as market gyrations reduced clients' willingness to take on risk. Concern that the U.S. economic rebound will stall and reform legislation will crimp profits at finance companies have weighed on their stocks.
"The clouds over the financial industry remain thick," said Michael Farr, president and founder of Washington-based Farr, Miller & Washington LLC, who manages more than $650 million. Farr, who sold his Goldman Sachs stock when the SEC suit was filed on April 16, said he's considering buying again.
'Leading the Category'
"You've got probably the greatest, most innovative investment bank in the world, leading the category, which looks cheap," Farr said before earnings were released. "I have not put my money back in yet but I am taking a close look at doing just that."
Goldman Sachs fell to $141.48 in New York trading at 8:31 a.m. from $145.68 yesterday. The stock is down 14 percent this year through yesterday, while the S&P 500 Financials Index, which tracks the performance of 80 financial company shares, is down 2 percent this year.
"The market environment became more difficult during the second quarter and, as a result, client activity across our businesses declined," Blankfein said in the statement.
Costs during the quarter included a $600 million charge for a tax levied by the U.K. government on bonuses paid to bank employees last year as well as a $550 million cost from the SEC settlement. Excluding those two costs, earnings per share would have been $2.75 per share. That's still the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008.
Operating Expenses
Total operating expenses dropped to $7.39 billion from $8.73 billion in the same period a year earlier as the company reduced compensation costs to $3.8 billion from $6.65 billion.
Goldman Sachs's shares rebounded last week after the firm settled with the SEC over its 2007 sale of a collateralized debt obligation. The cost was lower than the $1 billion some analysts had estimated and the settlement didn't require any management changes. Analysts slashed earnings estimates in recent weeks on concern market declines would hurt trading revenue as well as on costs related to the settlement and the U.K.'s bonus tax.
"People have gotten overly pessimistic on Goldman," Charles Peabody, an analyst at Portales Partners LLC, said before the earnings were released. "We don't believe they've lost big chunks of their client base, and we do believe in their risk-management capabilities."
Bank of America
Shares of some of Goldman Sachs's biggest rivals fell last week after they reported revenue that was lower than investors predicted. JPMorgan Chase's second-quarter net revenue dropped 9 percent from the first quarter as sales at the investment-bank unit slid 24 percent. Bank of America Corp.'s revenue fell 9 percent as global banking and markets results tumbled 38 percent.
Morgan Stanley, which was the second-biggest securities firm after Goldman Sachs before both converted to banks in 2008, is due to report earnings tomorrow.
Goldman Sachs's revenue dropped to $8.84 billion, 31 percent below the first quarter and down 36 percent from the second quarter of last year. The biggest component, revenue from trading fixed-income, currencies and commodities, fell to $4.4 from $7.39 billion in the first quarter and $6.8 billion a year earlier.
The second-quarter annualized return on common equity, a measure of how well the firm reinvests earnings, declined to 7.9 percent in the quarter from 20.1 percent in the first quarter and 23 percent in the same quarter a year earlier. Book value per share climbed to $123.73 from $122.52 at the end of the first quarter.
Equity Trading
Equity trading revenue declined 49 percent to $1.21 billion from $2.35 billion in the first quarter. Principal investments, which includes gains and losses from Goldman Sachs's stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. as well as stakes in other companies and real estate, provided a $943 million gain in the quarter.
Investment-banking revenue dropped 23 percent to $917 million from the first quarter as advisory fees gained 2 percent, debt underwriting revenue declined 36 percent and equity underwriting revenue decreased 40 percent.
Investors and analysts said before the earnings that they're keen for news on how the settlement, which imposes changes to the way Goldman Sachs sells mortgage-related securities, and the wider financial regulatory reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate last week will affect earnings.
Risk-Taking
"I do think there will actually be business reforms where their risk-taking might be reined in," said Portales Partners LLC's Peabody. "I don't think there's any question that Goldman did play in the grey areas" and curbing that "reduces your opportunities."
Revenue from asset management rose 3 percent to $976 million from $946 million in the first quarter as assets under management fell 5 percent to $802 million from $840 million in the first quarter. Securities services, the division that includes fees charged for providing services to hedge funds, reported $397 million in revenue, up from $395 million in the first quarter.
To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net
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