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The Morning Ledger: Goldman Sachs’ Next CEO Replaces Finance Chief |
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Goldman Sachs CFO Martin Chavez speaking at a gala in 2012. He will return to the bank's trading division next month after 18 months in the role. PHOTO: ANDREW BURTON/REUTERS
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Good morning. New chief executives often wait to get into the driver’s seat before making sweeping changes. Not so at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The bank announced that incoming CEO David Solomon had picked a new finance chief -- Stephen Scherr -- to join the C-suite when he assumes the top role on Oct. 1. He also named a new chief operating officer.
Goldman’s Stephen Scherr will replace CFO Martin Chavez. By many accounts, Mr. Chavez had a rocky 18-month tenure as CFO. And the move was Mr. Chavez’s idea; he approached Mr. Solomon earlier this year and asked to return to Goldman’s trading arm, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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High stress: During Mr. Chavez’s time as CFO, Goldman stumbled in the Federal Reserve’s annual stress tests and disappointed shareholders by reducing its buyback program. On quarterly conference calls, Mr. Chavez also struggled at times to reassure shareholders concerned by Goldman’s trading woes and its expansion into new businesses.
Legal roots: Incoming CFO Mr. Scherr is currently spearheading Goldman’s push into credit cards, commercial banking and wealth management businesses. A trained lawyer who once clerked for a federal judge, he spent his early years at Goldman as a banker to media and telecom companies and later ran the firm’s Latin American business.
A fresh start: Mr. Solomon’s move to shore up his team may be quick, but it isn’t unprecedented. An incoming CEO will often pick a new finance chief, underscoring the role’s importance as a trusted advisor. Roughly one in five -- 22% -- of new CFOs are appointed within a CEO’s first year on the job, according to data from Korn/Ferry International. And 41% of new CFOs are appointed within a CEO’s first three years on the job.
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Dave & Buster's Entertainment Inc. and Petro River Oil Corp. are among the companies slated to report earnings today.
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. PHOTO: JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS
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Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, facing political backlash over the firm's growing market dominance, said Thursday that while big companies deserve to be scrutinized, politicians shouldn't vilify them.
General Motors Co. recalled more than one million late-model pickup trucks and large sport-utility vehicles in the U.S. for a steering defect.
Volkswagen AG will stop producing its Beetle compact car in 2019 as the car maker prepares for a future of electric cars, reports Reuters.
Facebook Inc. will begin fact-checking photographs and videos posted on the social media platform.
Boeing Co.’s defense business is back on the offensive, with sales at the unit set to rise in 2018 after four years of decline.
Hurricane Florence could make companies vulnerable to cyberattacks as firms race to protect computer systems and networks ahead of the storm which has started to lash the Carolinas.
United Parcel Service Inc. believes it can offset the lower-margin packages it carries for large shippers like Amazon.com Inc. with shipments for small businesses and the health care sector.
European plane maker Airbus SE named a new top salesman, a surprise move that widens a senior leadership shake-up.
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SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday waded into a longstanding fight to curb the impact of consultants who influence shareholder votes on hot-button topics such as executive pay.
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The chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which stops mergers it believes will push up prices, signaled Thursday he was willing to consider tougher enforcement, Reuters reports.
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The U.S. could sanction Russia’s aircraft giant, JSC Sukhoi Co., if its planes are linked to chemical-weapons attacks in Syria, a top Trump administration official said Thursday, in another warning to Moscow as the U.S. tries to ward off a new assault on civilians there.
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Rolls of steel sit in a warehouse in Chester, Va. The U.S. has placed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. PHOTO: STEVE HELBER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Tariffs have yet to meaningfully affect the U.S. economy because of the relatively small ones imposed so far. But trade tensions remain the biggest risk to the economic outlook, according to forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
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Rising coal prices could get another boost as Hurricane Florence shuts down exports from the Virginia coast, halting supplies to elsewhere in the world.
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The U.S. federal budget deficit nearly doubled in August from a year earlier, as government spending swelled and revenues declined.
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Every weekend we select a handful of in-depth articles we think are worth a bit of your time, either because they peel back the layers on a compelling business story, or somehow make us look at business in a different light.
Apple Inc., Volkswagen AG and about 20 other global manufacturers found themselves on the defense when Amnesty International reported two years ago that the cobalt in some of their batteries was dug up by Congolese miners and children under inhumane conditions. Many of the companies said they would audit their suppliers and send teams to Congo to fix the problem. But their efforts haven’t kept hand-dug cobalt out of the industry supply chain.
Hardly a week goes by without fresh signposts that our self-driving future is just around the corner. Only it’s probably not. It will likely take decades to come to fruition. And many of the companies that built their paper fortunes on the idea we’d get there soon are already adjusting their strategies to fit this reality.
The race to be the first 5G country has begun -- and the winner stands to gain a lot. Around the world, giant wireless-technology companies are coordinating with governments to come up with winning strategies to implement 5G, the next generation of cellular networks that promise to deliver ultrafast speeds and open up a range of new applications.
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