Goldman Sachs cuts 10 staff in commodities unit

Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is cutting 10 staff in its commodities division as the bank reviews the footprint of the once-dominant unit, according to a person familiar with the matter. It is cutting seven trading jobs and three sales jobs in Singapore, London and Houston, representing about 5 percent of the unit’s staff, the person said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
While the bank is cutting staff in metals and bulk commodities, it isn’t exiting either market, the person familiar with the matter said. The base and precious metals teams are being merged, they said.
Following a disastrous 2017, when the unit had its worst results since the bank’s initial public offering two decades ago, the division has been part of a sweeping review of the bank’s operations under new Chief Executive Officer David Solomon. Goldman was weighing cuts to the commodities unit as part of a broader reduction of its core trading business, Bloomberg News reported in February.
The cuts are the latest diminution of a business that for years dominated the rest of Wall Street in natural resources and was the training ground for a generation of Goldman’s top executives.
In the past 18 months, Goldman’s commodities division has had several departures, including Isabelle Ealet, the co-head of securities who was known as the “queen of commodities.” Others who have left the bank include commodities co-head Jeremy Taylor and Chief Operating Officer Don Casturo.