Goldman reshuffles trading executives after exit of top money spinner

Goldman Sachs has made several leadership changes in its global equities trading business following the departure of one of the division’s biggest money spinners last month, the bank told employees in an internal memo on Wednesday.

The staffing changes include Dmitri Potishko and Erdit Hoxha becoming co-heads of Goldman’s global flow derivatives and emerging markets trading, the bank said in the memo, a copy of which was seen by the Financial Times. The bank confirmed the contents of the memo.

The purpose of the reshuffle is to replace the hole left by the departure of Joe Montesano, formerly Goldman’s head of equity trading for the Americas, who retired from the bank last month. Montesano was such a big earner for Goldman that in 2021 his compensation exceeded chief executive David Solomon’s pay.

“These changes will further enhance the integration of our equities intermediation business and continue to strengthen the collaboration across our leading global cash and derivatives businesses,” Goldman told employees.

Cyril Goddeeris will lead global equity financing, which includes his responsibilities as co-head of global prime services and head of global securities lending and synthetic trading. Dimitrios Nikolakopoulos will lead global equity structured products.

Goddeeris has been at the bank for almost two decades and became a partner in 2014, while Nikolakopoulos joined in 2013 and was named a partner three years later.

Jameson Schriber will become head of One Delta for the Americas, the business of trading securities that track an underlying asset. Travis Chmelka will become head of Americas flow derivatives.

Goldman’s trading division has been its top-performing business in the past two years, benefiting from clients trading frequently amid market volatility. In 2022, the trading business generated more than half of the bank’s total revenues. Equities trading reported revenues of just under $11bn for 2022.

While profits at the division have helped Goldman ride out a prolonged slump in dealmaking at its investment banking business, morale at the trading business has suffered in recent months because of disappointment over bonuses.

Some of the profits which could have gone to the traders were instead used to subsidise bonuses at other parts of Goldman’s business, which had a more challenging year.

Amid the growing anger, Solomon in January made a rare visit to Goldman’s trading floor in New York, a move viewed by insiders as an effort to rally support.

The disappointment over pay also coincided with a significant job cutting programme across all of Goldman.