By Liz Hoffman 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (May 6, 2019).

When Goldman Sachs Group Inc. opened its annual meeting Thursday to Q&A, Mindee Wasserman beelined for the microphone.

Down for the day from Boston, Ms. Wasserman wasn't there to needle Goldman on climate change or diversity. She wanted Chief Executive David Solomon's take on Brexit.

Oh, and whether the disappearance of the Libor benchmark interest rate would cause millions of loans to default to the prime rate -- which she points out, is almost 3 percentage points higher.

Ms. Wasserman has been a fixture at Goldman's annual shareholder meeting, an otherwise uneventful affair where directors are easily re-elected and executives trudge through a few slides.

She says she owns about 100 shares of Goldman and has "on and off" since its IPO, 20 years ago Friday. "Why not get their take on what's happening in the world?" she said.

In past years, she asked Mr. Solomon's predecessor, Lloyd Blankfein, his views on oil prices, tax cuts, the 2016 presidential election, the Paris climate accord, China policy, interest-rate increases, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, the troubling shape of the yield curve, and what should happen to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "Smart questions," Mr. Blankfein said in 2017.

The next year she noted Goldman's participation in some hostile takeovers that were reshaping telecommunications and media, two industries she says she invests in. "Hostility is a gradient," Mr. Blankfein responded.

It's all fodder for Ms. Wasserman, who holds degrees in business and law, manages her own money and publishes a personal-finance newsletter on her website.

So what does Mr. Solomon think about Brexit? He said he doesn't expect the U.K. to leave the European Union without a replacement deal, a potentially disruptive outcome known as a "hard Brexit." As for Libor, he expects the industry to settle on a suitable replacement that won't break millions of loan contracts.

Ms. Wasserman found Mr. Solomon's comments "fairly thoughtful," she said on the sidelines on Goldman's meeting in New Jersey Thursday.

She only stumped him once. When she asked how Brexit would affect a U.K.-heavy ETF offered by Goldman's asset-management arm, he responded "candidly you're more knowledgeable about that than I am" and promised to have someone get back to her.

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

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 06, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

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