Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein to Step Down, Report Says

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein plans to step down as soon as the end of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The investment bank intends to replace Blankfein, 63, with one of its two co-presidents, David Solomon or Harvey Schwartz, the newspaper said Friday, citing people familiar with the matter that it didn’t name. A spokesman for Goldman Sachs didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

Blankfein, who underwent chemotherapy for cancer more than two years ago, led the firm through the financial crisis in better shape than most rivals, and the company capitalized with record trading revenues. In recent years, the bank has been hit by a slowdown in the markets business.

Blankfein has stitched together a patchwork of new initiatives: a consumer bank, a heightened focus on lending and more resources for asset management, including a suite of exchange-traded funds. Mostly he has doubled down on the trading and risk-taking that otherwise fell out of favor across much of Wall Street.

Solomon and Schwartz were appointed to their roles in late 2016 after the firm’s longtime president Gary Cohn left to join Donald Trump’s administration.

Goldman Sachs shares advanced 1.5 percent to $ 270.44 as of 12:08 p.m. in New York, near their highs for the day, after trading as low as $ 267.04 just after the Journal report.