Goldman’s asset managers missed a series of targets in crisis aftermath
BARELY a third of the European funds run by Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) have hit their targets during the last three years of global turmoil.
Only 37 per cent of the SICAV funds, run in Ireland and Luxembourg and open to investors based in Europe, beat their benchmark in the three years to 31 October.
Yesterday GSAM declined to comment but City A.M. understands that only two of its nine funds have beaten their benchmarks over the past three years.
Separate figures show that only 15 per cent of funds reached their benchmarks in the year to 31 October 2011.
The worst-performing strategy was quantitative equity.
The data comes after a period of upheaval for Goldman’s funds. In September it announced plans to close its $1.6bn (£1.02bn) Global Alpha hedge fund, which relied on computer-driven trading strategies, after it recorded a hefty loss when other quantitative hedge funds were up or flat for the year.
Despite these concerns GSAM has won praise recently for the quality of its staff with Katie Koch, 31, a senior portfolio strategist and chief of staff to O’Neill, named in an industry report on the top 40 asset managers under the age of 40.
Today GSAM manages $800bn globally but said it does not give publicly a breakdown of its investments for each continent.
The fund named Jim O’Neill, a high-profile Goldman economist, as its chairman just over a year ago.
Earlier this week O’Neill warned that Portugal, Ireland, Finland and Greece could all pull out of the Eurozone rather than operate under a closer, German-led fiscal integration.