Greg Lemkau's exit created an opening at Goldman in EMEA

Another Goldman executive is off to the buy-side. Gregg Lemkau, the co-head of Goldman's investment banking division, is off to  join MSD Partners, the family office of Michael Dell, which manages Dell's $15bn fortune. 

Lemkau's exit has prompted a re-org at Goldman, which has shuffled Jim Esposito, the former global co-head of markets into his old job. Esposito is the son of the former CFO of Chase Manhattan, a close protégé of David Solomon, and maybe even one day a candidate for the CEO role should Solomon sail off to become a full time DJ.

In turn, Esposito's move has created some excitement in EMEA. Although there are still two co-heads of the markets business (Ashok Varadhan and Marc Nachmann) both are based in New York. Esposito oversaw the EMEA sales and trading operation of the markets-centric Goldman Sachs International business, and his move leaves a gap in London. It also leaves a gap in sales: Varadhan was formerly a trader and Nachmann was formerly a banker; Esposito cut his teeth in sales before becoming an executive and represented the sales' perspective on Goldman's management committee. The expectation is that someone from sales in EMEA will soon replace him.

Who? One possibility might be Sam Morgan, a Goldman London partner and co-head of FICC sales in EMEA. 37 year-old Morgan was made partner two years ago and is one of Goldman's big beasts. You can see him talking here earlier this year about the disconnect between the market and fundamentals. He could have a lot more visibility in future...

Meanwhile, it's not clear why Lemkau left now but earlier this year he was working from Hawaii after getting stuck there on a family vacation when the pandemic broke out. The time difference meant that Lemkau was getting up at 1am every day to work, so it's possible that he may be a bit tired. 

Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash

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