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Goldman plays musical chairs
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January 11, 1999: 2:17 p.m. ET
Paulson becomes sole CEO, as Corzine relinquishes job to focus on IPO
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Brokerage house Goldman Sachs & Co. Inc. made significant changes to its senior management ranks Monday, with co-Chief Executive Jon Corzine taking on a new role to oversee the bank's public offering.
Corzine, a former bond trader who has led the 130-year-old firm since 1994, will retain his title as co-chairman and senior partner, but give up his position as chief executive to focus on the bank's long-awaited IPO.
"I believe that this is in the best long-term interest of the firm," Corzine said. "As we transition management at the top, I will now concentrate my energies on successfully completing our initial public offering."
Henry Paulson Jr., a former Midwest investment banker who became the firm's co-chief executive and co-chairman this summer, will become the company's sole CEO, retaining his other titles.
"The best time for transition is during a period of great strength," Paulson said in a statement. "We believe these appointments and the evolution of the governance of the firm will strengthen our management focus and keep the firm on a solid foundation to serve our clients, develop our people, and execute our strategy."
Goldman's partners this summer voted to go public but later withdrew the stock offering because global financial turmoil bloodied the firm's profits and depressed its potential value in a stock offering. The firm, which recently posted an 81 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits, has said it remained committed to go public to beef up its capital base and give it an acquisition currency -- stock -- in a consolidating securities industry.
Goldman now is likely to go public this spring because of strong results for the first quarter ending February 28 so far, and a stock market more receptive to public offerings, one Goldman insider said. The firm is reshuffling its top management ranks to prepare for a new structure as a public company, the source said, adding that Corzine will no longer run the firm's day-to-day operations.
As part of the changes, top executives John Thain and John Thornton became the firm's co-chief operating officers, a function that sets them up to lead the firm jointly one day, the Goldman source said. Thain was formerly Goldman's chief financial officer, and Thornton had been in charge of the firm's international operations. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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Goldman Sachs
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