The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS.PK) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 17, 2023 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Carey Halio - Investor Relations

David Solomon - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Denis Coleman - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Glenn Schorr - Evercore

Ebrahim Poonawala - Bank of America

Steven Chubak - Wolfe Research

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Mike Mayo - Wells Fargo

Brennan Hawken - UBS

Devin Ryan - JMP Securities

Dan Fannon - Jefferies

Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank

Gerard Cassidy - RBC

Jim Mitchell - Seaport Global

Operator

Good morning. My name is Katie and I will be your conference facilitator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Goldman Sachs Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded today, January 17, 2023. Thank you. Ms. Halio, you may begin your conference.

Carey Halio

Good morning. This is Carey Halio, Head of Investor Relations and Chief Strategic Officer at Goldman Sachs. Welcome to our fourth quarter earnings conference call. Today, we will reference our earnings presentation, which can be found on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.gs.com. Note information and forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures appear in the earnings release and presentation. This audiocast is copyrighted material of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and may not be duplicated, reproduced or rebroadcast without our consent.

I am joined by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, David Solomon; and our Chief Financial Officer, Denis Coleman. Let me pass the call to David.

David Solomon

Thanks, Carey and good morning everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. I will begin with a review of our financial performance.

Simply said, our quarter was disappointing and our business mix proved particularly challenging. These results are not what we aspire to deliver to shareholders. We generated revenues of $10.6 billion and net earnings of $1.3 billion and earnings per share of $3.32. After nine straight quarters of double-digit returns, fourth quarter performance was certainly an outlier. Results were impacted by several near-term challenges given the difficult operating environment.

On the revenue front, underwriting volumes remained extremely muted despite green shoots that appeared at the end of the third quarter. FICC and equity activities - activity levels dropped after a busy and volatile year for many of our clients and our equity investment portfolio saw continued headwinds.