Is Goldman Sachs brewing a Mega Strategy?

Date

July 18, 2024

Category

Management

Author

Prachi Rajgarhia

Reading Time

2 min

Here are the pieces of the puzzle that was built meticulously over the last decade. With more lay-off news coming in, this time around from Wall Street, inorganic growth strategies are now being questioned. One such acquire and

Goldman Sachs ambitious direct-to-consumer business model – Marcus, created to compete with the likes of J.P Morgan’s Chase and Citi, now merged with the wealth and asset management division, has raised questions on its retail banking strategy.

Notably, the bank acquired more than 22+ companies over the last couple of years, to largely build and complement its consumer banking segments. Some of these acquisitions include:

‍

1/ NextCapital - a fintech company that provides automated advice to corporate retirement plan participants

2/ GreenSky® - the world’s largest fintech platform for home improvement consumer loan originations

3/ United Capital and by extension FinLife CX – the former a registered investment advisor with $25 billion AUM and the later a digital platform that helps independent advisors grow their business and enhance relationships with their clients.

4/ Clarity Money - an app that uses machine learning to help consumers better manage their personal finances and offer actionable insights.

While the bank aimed to diversify its revenue streams and strengthen its balance sheet with this strategy, all things point to another strategy pivot with “platform play” lining-up beside the wealth & asset management and trading & investment banking divisions.

Maybe a better approach to help GS take a step forward would be

1/ To understand how existing and acquired businesses complement each other

2/ Knowledge of the possible cross-selling opportunities within platform ecosystem

3/ Hard lessons learnt from its’ Marcus venture.

‍

See more on how we think?

VIEW ALL

Readers rated our insights 8.5/10!

September 3, 2026

Is there a right way to shut down a business?

A game developer, after raising funding, goes bust as it fails to attract users. However, an internal tool they were able to salvage is worth $18Bn today. Is there really a right way to even shut down?

Economy

September 3, 2026

Microsoft - one of the most successful pivots of all time?

In 2014, Microsoft was suffering.‍It looked at the business as 2 segments, licensing orhardware – based on how it felt as a division internally.

Research

September 3, 2026

How do I create a board?

We often hear the term Board of Advisors/ Advisory Board being used with reference to organizations. While it is easy to derive the nature of their role from the name itself, it is important that we understand how to build a board

Advisory board