Blackstone offers support as Goldman prepares to testify
PRIVATE equity firm Blackstone Group stood by Goldman yesterday saying it would remain a major client of the bank and has never had reason to question its behaviour on any deal it has worked on with them, chief executive Stephen Schwarzman said.
“We’ve been working with Goldman Sachs since Blackstone was founded almost 25 years ago and I’ve been personally working with them for over 40 years, and we’ve never had any circumstance where there’s been any question about their ethical character or their behaviour on any transaction we were involved with,” Schwarzman said.
The Goldman Sachs banker accused of a $1bn fraud, will appear at a Senate sub-committee hearing on Tuesday to defend his complex mortgage investments.
Fabrice “Fabulous” Tourre, 31, will give his testimony to a sub-committee on investigations hearing into the mortgage market. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive; David Viniar, chief financial officer; Craig Broderick chief risk officer and other Goldman mortgages and structured products trading executives will appear with him.