Is Goldman Wooing Retail Customers, Again?

Goldman Sachs might be contemplating another stroll down Main Street.

The Wall Street mega-firm took out a full-page ad in the Financial Times for its asset management business this week, a type of marketing that seems more retail-focused and is a rarity for the 156-year old company. Those ads, along with other spots that recently aired on CNBC, marks largely new territory for Goldman, according to Marc Nachmann, Goldman global head of asset and wealth management. The promotions are among the firm’s efforts to market its broadly available mutual funds and ETFs, he said at a Financial Times conference in New York City held this week. The consumer market has eluded Goldman for years, but could this time be different?

“One of the things, when you look at trends that are exciting for the industry, is retail at large is growing faster than the institutional space,” Marc Nachmann, Goldman global head of asset & wealth management, said at the FT LIVE conference in New York. “We’re spending a good amount of time on how to approach it the right way.”

Ad It Up

The company is trying to tap retail clientele and bolster its reputation as an asset manager, Nachmann said. “Goldman is obviously a very well-known brand, but we want to enhance what people think of us as an asset manager,” he said. Goldman’s products, however, are still largely focused on advisors who can get them in clients’ portfolios.

While Goldman may be one of the biggest investment firms in the world with more than $3 trillion in assets under management, it has a checkered past when it comes to retail banking. Its consumer-focused Marcus offerings flopped in recent years because of strategic missteps, missed profitability goals, huge tech costs and mounting tension among Goldman’s top brass, according to reports:

• Goldman started selling off parts of the Marcus business in 2022, and in April 2024, it sold the platform’s robo-advisor to Betterment.
• Similarly, Goldman and Apple appear to be ending their partnership on the Apple Card and Apple Savings account.

It’s not uncommon for larger Wall Street firms to retreat from mass affluent efforts, returning their focus to high-net-worth bread-and-butter clients. UBS, U.S. Bank and even JPMorgan decided to shutter their robo-advisors in recent years.