Goldman Sachs will reportedly add a longtime ally of embattled CEO David Solomon to its board amid growing discontent at the Wall Street giant.
Veteran banker Tom Montag, who spent 22 years at Goldman and was seen as a Solomon supporter, will be enlisted by the board when it gathers in India this week, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The move could help cushion backlash from staffers after the 61-year-old hard-charging boss reportedly on Monday began axing about 125 managing directors as part of a round of layoffs that will affect a total of 250 staffers at every level.
The culling comes on the heels of 3,200 job cuts in January and previous reports that Goldman’s board was “starting to reevaluate” Solomon after partners’ qualms about their lackluster bonuses, his mismanaged venture into consumer banking and his side hustle as a DJ.
“David may have a problem with the board room. No one wants to see someone is at war with their senior execs,” one Goldman insider had told The Post. “You can ignore the bad coverage for a month or two, but the board no longer has plausible deniability about what’s going on.”
It’s unclear what’s on the board’s agenda while in India — home to Goldman’s second-largest office after New York and employs around 9,000.
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Montag, 66, spent two decades working as Goldman’s global co-head of securities. He secured the partner rank before the firm went public in 1999, Bloomberg reported.
He and Solomon worked side by side before Montag left Goldman in 2008 to work at Merrill Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of America as a result of the financial crisis. He spent the following 13 years rising to second-in-command.
The iron-fisted leader retired as BofA’s president of Global Banking and Markets and COO in 2021.
Montag would become the 13th member on Goldman’s board, which had 14 members before Drew Faust and Mark Winkelman retired from the committee in April, and the first banker appointed under Solomon.
The latest reduction in headcount comes as deal values have fallen more than 40% to $1.2 trillion this year.
Goldman Sachs Group’s share price fell 0.2% to $314.09 on Monday. The stock is down more than 8% since the beginning of this year.
Goldman ranked as the No. 2 adviser globally, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The last time the bank didn’t place first at the year’s halfway point was in 2018, the data showed.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
