Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) should stop promoting itself as “putting customers first” because the slogan ignores conflicts inherent in trading, said Arthur Levitt, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and a senior adviser to the firm.
“We probably ought to stop saying that because nobody really puts customers first,” Levitt, 81, said in an interview with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television today. “Business is a tension between sellers and buyers.”
“Our clients’ interests always come first,” has been the No. 1 business policy at New York-based Goldman Sachs since the late 1970s, when then co-Chairman John C. Whitehead drafted a set of 14 business principles to guide the firm. Levitt’s suggestion comes 14 months after a committee on which he served issued a “business standards” report that reaffirmed Goldman Sachs’s commitment to putting clients’ interests first.
“Goldman shouldn’t play to that,” Levitt said in the interview today. “Goldman should play to their competence, which is considerable.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/goldman-should-stop-saying-we-put-customers-first-levitt-says.html
“We probably ought to stop saying that because nobody really puts customers first,” Levitt, 81, said in an interview with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television today. “Business is a tension between sellers and buyers.”
“Our clients’ interests always come first,” has been the No. 1 business policy at New York-based Goldman Sachs since the late 1970s, when then co-Chairman John C. Whitehead drafted a set of 14 business principles to guide the firm. Levitt’s suggestion comes 14 months after a committee on which he served issued a “business standards” report that reaffirmed Goldman Sachs’s commitment to putting clients’ interests first.
“Goldman shouldn’t play to that,” Levitt said in the interview today. “Goldman should play to their competence, which is considerable.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/goldman-should-stop-saying-we-put-customers-first-levitt-says.html
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