Goldman Sachs reported its second-highest quarterly revenue and EPS ever, driven by record Global Banking & Markets results, particularly in equities financing and strong M&A advisory. Management expressed confidence in the future, underpinned by a robust M&A backlog and strategic investments in AI and Asia, while navigating market volatility and uncertainties in the private credit space. Record GBM revenues of $12.7B, driven by strength in equities financing (+59% YoY) and M&A advisory (+89% YoY).
Goldman Sachs reported its second-highest quarterly revenue and EPS ever, driven by record Global Banking & Markets results, particularly in equities financing and strong M&A advisory. Management expressed confidence in the future, underpinned by a robust M&A backlog and strategic investments in AI and Asia, while navigating market volatility and uncertainties in the private credit space. Record GBM revenues of $12.7B, driven by strength in equities financing (+59% YoY) and M&A advisory (+89% YoY).
Management is 'hugely forward-leaning' on AI, calling it a powerful accelerant for growth and efficiency inside Goldman Sachs and for client demand. They are investing in cloud/data foundations to scale AI capabilities, while flagging AI-driven disruption and cybersecurity as…
Record GBM revenues of $12.7B, driven by strength in equities financing (+59% YoY) and M&A advisory (+89% YoY).
2026 Q1 net revenues were $17.2B and EPS was $17.55, both the second-highest in firm history, with an ROE of 19.8%.
The M&A backlog remained 'extraordinarily robust' despite record revenue production, signaling continued strong deal flow.
Management is 'hugely forward-leaning' on AI, calling it a powerful accelerant for growth and efficiency inside Goldman Sachs and for client demand. They are investing in cloud/data foundations to scale AI capabilities, while flagging AI-driven disruption and cybersecurity as risks they are actively monitoring.
Management expresses strong confidence in future growth, driven by a robust M&A pipeline, record equity financing, and AI-driven efficiency gains, despite ongoing geopolitical and macro uncertainties.
Capital/infrastructure investment is being raised, with management accelerating cloud migration and data-quality work to unlock AI-enabled productivity gains. Non-comp expenses were higher partly due to activity-related costs, but the firm reiterated its focus on reaching a 60% efficiency ratio.
Management struck an upbeat, assured tone, highlighting record revenues and a strong franchise position while acknowledging ongoing macro and geopolitical uncertainties.
“Even with exceptionally strong revenue production, our quarter-end backlog remained extraordinarily robust.”
“Record equities financing revenues of $2.6 billion were 59% higher year-over-year, with particular strength in Asia, amid another record for average prime balances in the quarter.”
“one of the things that we're seeing that's just interesting is quite constructive for our business is that spreads are becoming more lender-friendly.”
“if we look back over the course of history on our FIC financing activities, our life-to-date realized losses, if you exclude some direct commercial real estate, life-to-date realized losses are zero.”
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capex | FY2026 | 60% | 60% | GUIDED |
Goldman Sachs is advising on a significant energy sector acquisition, contributing to its record investment banking revenues.
“Cotera Energy's $26 billion sale to Devon Energy”
… our ability to perform consistently across cycles. In investment banking, we remain the number one M&A advisor globally, clients continue to turn to Goldman Sachs for advice and expertise regarding their most important strategic transactions amid a backdrop of accelerating technological change and industry disruption. This includes the announced $43 billion merger of Unilever's food business with McCormick, Cisco's $29 billion acquisition of Jethro Restaurant Depot, and Cotera Energy's $26 billion sale to Devon Energy. While market conditions tempered execution for IPOs and sponsor activity broadly, we believe that activity levels will rebound once conditions stabilize. As you remember, our backlog closed 2025 at its highest level in four years. Even with exceptionally strong revenue production, our quarter-end backlog remained extraordinarily robust. In asset and wealth management, clients continue to choose Goldman Sachs for the quality of our advice and our longstanding investment track record. we generated $62 billion in long-term fee-based inflows, including $22 billion in wealth management flows. The consistent inflow momentum throughout the quarter, including during …
Goldman Sachs is acting as advisor on the large strategic merger, indicating a major transaction with fee potential for the bank.
“This includes the announced $43 billion merger of Unilever's food business with McCormick”
… of 60% in European gas markets. Importantly, the growth of our financing business has added further balance to our performance, reinforcing our ability to perform consistently across cycles. In investment banking, we remain the number one M&A advisor globally, clients continue to turn to Goldman Sachs for advice and expertise regarding their most important strategic transactions amid a backdrop of accelerating technological change and industry disruption. This includes the announced $43 billion merger of Unilever's food business with McCormick, Cisco's $29 billion acquisition of Jethro Restaurant Depot, and Cotera Energy's $26 billion sale to Devon Energy. While market conditions tempered execution for IPOs and sponsor activity broadly, we believe that activity levels will rebound once conditions stabilize. As you remember, our backlog closed 2025 at its highest level in four years. Even with exceptionally strong revenue production, our quarter-end backlog remained extraordinarily robust. In asset and wealth management, clients continue to choose Goldman Sachs for the quality of our advice and our longstanding investment track record. we generated $62 billion in long-term …
Goldman Sachs is advising on a major acquisition, indicative of robust M&A activity and potential fee income.
“Cisco's $29 billion acquisition of Jethro Restaurant Depot”
… business has added further balance to our performance, reinforcing our ability to perform consistently across cycles. In investment banking, we remain the number one M&A advisor globally, clients continue to turn to Goldman Sachs for advice and expertise regarding their most important strategic transactions amid a backdrop of accelerating technological change and industry disruption. This includes the announced $43 billion merger of Unilever's food business with McCormick, Cisco's $29 billion acquisition of Jethro Restaurant Depot, and Cotera Energy's $26 billion sale to Devon Energy. While market conditions tempered execution for IPOs and sponsor activity broadly, we believe that activity levels will rebound once conditions stabilize. As you remember, our backlog closed 2025 at its highest level in four years. Even with exceptionally strong revenue production, our quarter-end backlog remained extraordinarily robust. In asset and wealth management, clients continue to choose Goldman Sachs for the quality of our advice and our longstanding investment track record. we generated $62 billion in long-term fee-based inflows, including $22 billion in wealth management flows. The …
Goldman Sachs is collaborating with Anthropic to enhance its AI and cybersecurity capabilities, indicating a strategic partnership.
Thanks for that, David. Very comprehensive. If I can, a quick follow-up. Bank CEOs were in D.C. on Friday around concerns around some of the AI-driven risks to banking infrastructure. Anything you can share with us in terms of, like, is this something extremely different than what banks have had to deal with over the last decade? To the extent you can share any color, I think that would be helpful. and how do you perceive the risk to Goldman Sachs? Thanks.
Yeah. So thank you for that. Obviously, something we're focused on. I want to start by saying that cybersecurity has long been at the core of our business, and we have for a very, very long time put enormous resources forward to think constantly about cybersecurity risks in our business, and it's something we've invested significantly in and continue to invest in. And, you know, it's been widely reported that the large bank CEOs happen to be in Washington for a regular meeting of the Financial Services Forum. And so we were asked to come over to Treasury. By the way, it is not the first meeting that that group has gone over to Treasury to talk about cybersecurity risks over a number of years. So, you know, my first point is this is something the industry is focused on. It's something we're focused on. And there's nothing new in that focus. Obviously, the LLMs are making rapid progress. And, you know, we're hyper aware of the enhanced capabilities of these new models. You know, with the help of the U.S. government and the model publishers, you know, we are very focused on supplementing our cyber and infrastructure resilience. And this is part of our ongoing capabilities that we have been investing in and are accelerating our investment in. We're aware of VIFO's capabilities. We have the model. We're working closely with Anthropic and all of our security vendors to kind of harness frontier capabilities wherever it's possible, and this will continue to be, you know, an important focus, but it's not new that as technology evolves, we have to continue to upgrade to cyber risk and make sure we're at the forefront of that.
Management views potential volatility in private credit as a strategic opportunity, noting spreads are becoming 'more lender-friendly', which could allow it to deploy capital at better terms. — A repricing in private credit could be a major tailwind for Goldman's alternative investment business, allowing it to generate higher risk-adjusted returns and gain market share.
Good morning. I guess I just want to take a step back. A lot happened during the quarter. So, David, appreciate your remarks around the 30-year track record for Goldman and private credit. But if you don't mind, I think there is a sense that private credit is a significant growth driver for Goldman. For our benefit, given just the growth in this asset class, give us a sense of how you see this potentially impacting sponsor activity when it comes to M&A IPO as we think about the next year fake financing has been a big focus with investors around how that growth will slow down so would love some color around how you think this actually coming home to impacting your growth outlook and if…
You know, I think there have been, you know, attempts to try to put this in perspective. I know the media headlines have driven, you know, an enormous amount of negative sentiment around private credit. You know, my own view is it's important to really distinguish between different markets and really try to put it all in perspective. You know, I think you guys know this, that private credit in the broadest definition you could possibly come up with is about $3.5 trillion of assets. But the thing that's been getting a lot of focus is direct lending. And direct lending is about $1.6 to $1.7 trillion of assets of which the retail channel for that direct lending business is about 20% or about $230 billion of NAD. You know, there obviously is heightened redemptions in certain peer-managed funds. You know, these peer-managed funds have been concentrated in retail outflows as opposed to institutional outflows. And one of the things that we're seeing that's just interesting is quite constructive for our business is that spreads are becoming more lender-friendly. And so, when you look at our first quarter 2026 subscriptions in our GS credit BDC, 40% of them were from institutions, many of whom are first-time investors on our platforms, including insurance companies, banks, pension funds. And when you look at our broad platform, it's over 80%, you know, institutional, you know, institutional partners, very, very broad, very, very diverse, and, you know, we've been growing it over a long period of time. You obviously saw our positive inflows of what we raised, you know, privately in the quarter. We feel we're very well positioned, and actually the opportunity set to some degree is improving. I know people are very focused on the cycle, and they should be. This has been a long period of time, you know, X, Z, COVID shutdown has been a long period of time without what I call a normal credit cycle, meaning a meaningful slowdown in the economy or a recession. Whenever you have a meaningful slowdown in the economy or a recession, you know, there are higher loss levels in diversified credit portfolios. I think risk management and portfolio construction are very important in places where people are haven't followed their portfolio construction carefully and they've gotten overweighted to a particular sector, they'll obviously have more headwinds. But I think one of the things …