GS Goldman Sachs Group Inc

By Liz Hoffman 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Wednesday announced a series of changes to the executives running its all-important bond-trading business, which has struggled with calmer markets and reduced client trading.

The retirement of Tom Cornacchia, co-head of global sales for fixed-income, currencies and commodities, or FICC, sparked a reshuffling of officials throughout the trading arm, according to internal firm memos.

Mr. Cornacchia will be succeeded by John Willian, who will join current global FICC sales co-head Jim Esposito. Mr. Willian is currently global head of prime services, which includes prime brokerage, the business of selling stocks and services to hedge funds. While prime brokerage is typically geared toward stock trading, Mr. Willian's background is in debt, having held posts in Goldman's municipal-bond and mortgage departments.

Mr. Cornacchia's retirement opened the door for a shuffling on a scale that rarely happens at Goldman. Some bankers and traders have grumbled in recent years that a lack of movement at the top -- Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein and President Gary Cohn have long been in their positions, and leadership of the major business units has been relatively stable -- has created a bottleneck of talent further down. The moves announced Wednesday represent one of the biggest one-time talent shifts inside the trading business in years.

Among the changes, Mr. Willian's spot will be filled by Jeff Nedelman, who currently is head of Americas equities sales.

Filling Mr. Nedelman's role, Jack Sebastian and Tony Pasquariello will become joint heads of U.S. equities sales. Mr. Sebastian currently manages both equity and fixed-income trading for Goldman's Boston office. Mr. Pasquariello, a younger partner as a member of the 2012 class, heads North American equity derivative sales and U.S. equities franchise sales.

The changes were announced by Isabelle Ealet, Pablo Salame and Ashok Varadhan, global co-heads of the firm's securities division.

Separately, Goldman's co-head of global equities trading, Peter Selman plans to leave the bank, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Selman, a partner since 2006, has been with Goldman more than 20 years. His global responsibilities include stock-trading execution.

Mr. Selman declined to comment Wednesday.

The shifts follow challenging times for the unit. Global trading volumes have shrunk since the crisis, with FICC -- Wall Street's profit center for years -- hit particularly hard. While rivals have pared or pivoted, Goldman has largely stayed the course, betting that revenues will rebound or that it will be able to capture a sufficiently large share of what remains.

Goldman has cut more than 5% of its trading staff this year as it looks to rein in costs and right-size for a smaller fee pie.

Goldman often prunes the executive ranks ahead of announcing every two years a new class of partners, which it will do this fall. J. Ronald Morgan, head of execution services, retired earlier this year, and two fixed-income trading partners, Peeyush Mishra and Carsten Schwarting, have also left in recent months.

Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 08, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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