Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals.
Founded in 1869, it is one of the oldest and largest investment banking firms. The firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.
Goldman Sachs's strategy is to grow three core businesses – investment banking, trading and principal investments and asset management and securities services – in markets throughout the world. The specific area of the firm through which private-equity investments are made is the merchant banking division. MBD invests the firm’s own capital, as well as capital raised from outside investors, in corporate and real estate assets worldwide. Its merchant banking funds leverage its longstanding relationships with companies, investors, entrepreneurs and financial intermediaries around the globe.
MBD manages a diverse set of investment funds with asset classes that include private equity, mezzanine, real estate and infrastructure. Established in 1991, the GS Capital Partners family of funds is the global private-equity vehicle through which the firm focuses on large, sophisticated business investments in which value can be created through leveraging the resources of Goldman Sachs. Since 1986, Goldman Sachs has invested over $43 billion of equity in over 600 companies globally. Goldman Sachs has significant experience investing in natural-resources-related businesses including Kinder Morgan, Inc., Coffeyville Resources, Horizon Wind Energy, Orion Power Holdings, Inc., Bill Barrett Corporation, Cogentrix Energy, Inc., East Coast Power and Cobalt International Energy, L.P. Other recent investments include a range of global businesses based in the U.S. (ARAMARK, Burger King, Education Management Corporation, Hawker Beechcraft, HealthMarkets Inc. and SunGard Data Systems), Europe (Ahlsell AB, ISS, PagesJaunes Groupe SA and Prysmian Cables & Systems) and Asia (C&M Cable, Fujita Corporation and Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd). Many of these investments were made as part of multibillion-dollar transactions that required significant equity capital and as such involved Goldman Sachs joining with other private-equity firms to provide the total equity capital needed to complete the transaction.