Yes, incoming Goldman Sachs [profile] CEO David Solomon is on the hunt for asset management acquisitions.

"You should expect that, in certain segments of our business, we will continue to be acquisitive," Stephen Scherr, incoming chief financial officer of Goldman, said last week on Goldman's Q3 2018 earnings call with analysts, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha, when responding to question from Deutsche Bank analyst Matt O'Connor.

Scherr points to two areas of M&A interest: the "consumer business" and investment management.

"So I think in those two areas, you should expect us to be nimble and potentially acquisitive," Scherr said. "Putting cash to that acquisition is perfectly reasonable and immaterial."

Yet Scherr offered some caveats, too.

"Historically, you have seen us make small acquisitions in that context because you can pick up teams or assets or sort of extend yourself into adjacent businesses," Scherr says.

"I don't want to have you come away thinking that those read across to major acquisitions that the firm would do," Scherr adds. "I simply want to point out that those are businesses where acquisitions are efficient, both, as I said, in the acquisition of talent and IP and equally time to market."

In other words, Scherr seemed to be pushing back against recent rumors about Goldman courting Fidelity or speculators who thought Goldman would make a good OpFunds buyer. (Invesco won there anyways.) 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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