Dear Goldman Sachs investors: allow David Solomon to explain 

One video to start: DD’s Antoine Gara delves into the tale of Jake Freeman, the 20-year-old student who ended up making more than $100mn at the height of meme-stock mania.

In today’s newsletter:

• Solomon prepares his defence

• Chris Hohn confronts Airbus

• The battle for Manchester United

David Solomon prepares to make his case

Between his bold bet on consumer banking, a partnership with McLaren’s Formula 1 team and DJ gigs at music festivals like Lollapalooza, David Solomon is among the busiest chief executives on Wall Street.

Yet the Goldman Sachs boss is still struggling to transform the investment bank he took over in 2018.

While Goldman has expanded its market share in its core investment banking and trading business, and outperformed the S&P 500 index under Solomon’s watch, efforts to diversify the bank’s revenues into less volatile areas like asset and wealth management have come up short.

In other words, not much has changed. “It’s a lukewarm grade for strategic transformation so far. In essence, Goldman is essentially what it was five years ago,” said Christian Bolu, a senior research analyst at Autonomous Research.

With the clock ticking, the banker is under pressure to prove to investors that he can still turn things around, as our FT colleagues reported over the weekend.

AllianceBernstein portfolio manager Rasmus Lee Hansen said he hoped to hear “a humble presentation” from Solomon at Goldman’s second-ever investor day in New York later this month that acknowledged mistakes that have been made. That includes an expensive bet on consumer banking, which hasn’t panned out.

The failed consumer push, coupled with Goldman’s heavy reliance on M&A and trading, has made it particularly vulnerable to a slowdown in investment banking activity.

Deep bonus cuts and job cuts were the inevitable next step as Solomon sought to plug the growing valuation gap between rivals such as Morgan Stanley, which has used record wealth management revenues to ride out the dealmaking slowdown.

But other moves by the Wall Street boss, like holding a private meeting for Goldman partners in Miami earlier this month, have rubbed some employees the wrong way.

Some felt the event clashed with the job cuts and other cost-cutting measures, like banning travel unless it’s approved by one of the bank’s partners, according to people familiar with the policies. The gathering featured a fireside chat with comedian Trevor Noah among other perks.

Others appreciated Solomon’s forthrightness. His acceptance of his mistakes was welcomed by some of the angry partners in attendance, said people briefed on the event.

He appears to be making efforts to appease employees as well as shareholders. In late January, he paid a rare visit to Goldman’s trading floor in New York — a clear sign, said insiders, that he’s trying to win support.

After a string of departures, forming new allies has never been more key for the man at the top.

A proposed Airbus deal enters Hohn’s ‘no-fly zone’

A week after helping to seal one of the largest single aviation deals in history with Boeing and Tata Sons’ Air India last week, Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury is no longer flying high.

His latest strategic play, a bid to buy a minority stake in the soon-to-be-spun-off cyber security and data division of French IT group Atos, is facing headwinds from one of the plane manufacturer’s largest shareholders: billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn.

Airbus insists the proposed transaction is a good fit and will help it to expand its digitalisation and cyber security expertise across its activities.

But the outspoken investor behind TCI, which manages about $40bn in assets, has a few gripes with the proposal.

First, he argues it’s politically motivated. “The transaction appears to be a bail out of Atos, a company that is burdened with unsustainable levels of debt and other liabilities,” Hohn wrote in a letter to Faury. The activist owns more than 3 per cent of Airbus’s shares.

Atos is burning cash flow at an average of €385mn annually through 2025, according to S&P Global estimates. Helping fund a rescue would give Airbus kudos from France, which had high hopes to turn Atos into a domestic tech heavyweight.

Second, Hohn argues, the proposed deal would distract from the more pressing issue of supply chain bottlenecks, which hampered deliveries of many of Airbus’ best-selling jets even as orders flowed in.

“The last thing management needs is a new problem child to distract it from Airbus’s core business, which for the first time in 20 years looks to be in good order,” Hohn added.

A royal and a billionaire square off for Manchester United

Manchester United is very much a global talking point right now and not because of its results on the pitch.

Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the son of Qatar’s former prime minister, and chemicals tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe are both vying to buy the football club from the US billionaire Glazer family.

In one corner is Sheikh Jassim, whose father is one of the richest men in the tiny Gulf state. He could lead the next stage of Qatar’s sporting ambitions after hosting the Fifa World Cup last year and restore United to “its former glories”.

In the other is Ratcliffe, the billionaire founder of UK chemicals group Ineos who declared his intent to put “the Manchester back into Manchester United”. 

Neither statement went down well. They were interpreted as something of a dig at the current ownership, according to a person close to the process, which is handled by Raine Group.

The US merchant bank is managing a very different process compared to when it brokered the £2.5bn sale of Chelsea FC last year, when wealthy bidders paired up with celebrities and star athletes to burnish their credentials in a very public way. Whereas sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich was a forced seller of Chelsea, the Glazers are in no such position.

Led by executive co-chairs Joel and Avi, the six Glazer siblings on the club’s board made clear in November that they’re open to a sale of the English Premier League club as part of a wider strategic review.

Despite owning one of the most tweeted-about brands in sport, the Glazers have barely uttered a word to the media since acquiring the club in 2005. Already despised by hardcore fans for loading the club with debt and failing to win the league title since 2013, the Glazers’ support for the breakaway European Super League in April 2021 led to further protests.

But this week’s news from arch-rivals Liverpool FC should remind United fans that there can be no certainty of outcome. While John Henry’s Fenway Sports Group had considered parting ways with Liverpool, the US businessman called off the sale this week.

Can Sheikh Jassim or Sir Jim convince the Glazers to sell up?

Don’t miss out on the action: sign up to receive Scoreboard, our newsletter on all things sport, in your inbox every Saturday and register here for the FT’s Business of Football Summit on March 1-2. 

Job moves

• Smith+Nephew has named former Serco chief Rupert Soames as its next chair, succeeding former WPP chair Roberto Quarta, whose tenure will end in April.

• Credit Suisse has named Neil Hosie as its sole head of its global equities following the departure of his co-head, Doug Crofton, who left to join Royal Bank of Canada, per Reuters. He will be based in London.

• Seven of the 10 employee representatives on Deutsche Bank’s board have decided to leave the governance body, Bloomberg reports.

• SM co-chief executive Lee Sung-su — the nephew of founder Lee Soo-man’s late wife — plans to step down from the K-pop juggernaut in March, he announced via video amid a battle between two of South Korea’s biggest entertainment companies for control of the group.

• Mark Gregory and Vicky Jarman are stepping down from the board of UK gambling group Entain.

Smart reads

Partial retirement Bridgewater’s billionaire founder Ray Dalio has finally ceded control over the hedge fund after months of negotiations and an enormous exit package. But his presence still lingers, The New York Times reports.

Assets and liabilities Private equity buyers sacked the existing chief executive 70 per cent of the time in a recent study. But those who made the cut were paid handsomely. DD’s Sujeet Indap examines the pros and cons of working under masters of the universe.

The Epstein effect Newly public allegations about Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship to Jes Staley have dragged Barclays and JPMorgan Chase further into the scandal. Both seem to have a knack for ignoring inconvenient facts, writes the FT’s Brooke Masters.

News round-up

Hedge fund Galois closes after half of assets trapped on crypto exchange FTX (FT)

Ex-bankers sentenced to jail for defrauding Libyan sovereign wealth fund (FT)

Adani decides against bid for stake in power trader PTC (Bloomberg)

Deutsche Bank criticised by regulators over forex mis-selling probe (FT)

Cybersecurity firm Darktrace hires EY to review financial processes after damning short seller report (CNBC)

Rogers-Shaw lawyers could nab bigger share of C$100 mn-plus fee jackpot (Reuters)

Russian billionaire Manasir’s 90-meter yacht docks in Singapore (Bloomberg)