Goldman Reports Best Quarter In Four Years, “Average” Employee Paid $381,948

The one TBTF “bank” which unabashedly admits it is just a taxpayer backstopped hedge fund printing money for its owners (while supervising the NY Fed and all other central banks with various former employees in charge) with no actual lending or depository operations, Goldman Sachs (GS), just hit it out of the park, when moments ago it reported Q1 earnings that smashed both top and bottom-line expectations, with revenues of $10.62 billion, up 13.8% from last year, and EPS of $6.00 printing far above the expected $9.31bn and $4.26. This was the best revenue generating quarter for Goldman since Q1 2011, or in four years. 

The breakdown by product line was impressive, with ever single revenue vertical posting Y/Y increases, with FICC’s 10% increase resulting in the best quarter for the all important (and most profitable for the quarter) group since Q1 2013. Investment banking also rose 7% courtesy of an M&A and bond underwriting spree which usually see Goldman at the top (like today’s Virtu IPO for example; the same Virtu Goldman bashed indirectly via Michael Lewis’ book).

The full breakdown is below.

 

 

And since this is Goldman, if you generate money for the firm, you make money:

The accrual for compensation and benefits expenses (including salaries, estimated year-end discretionary compensation, amortization of equity awards and other items such as benefits) was $4.46 billion for the first quarter of 2015, 11% higher than the first quarter of 2014. This increase reflected an increase in net revenues, partially offset by a decline in the ratio of compensation and benefits to net revenues from 43.0% for the first quarter of 2014 to 42.0% for the first quarter of 2015. 

Most notably, Goldman remains the only TBTF to hire employees quarter after quarter: “Total staff increased 1% during the first quarter of 2015.” Total employees at the end of Q1 rose to 34,400 from 34,000 a quarter ago and 32,600 a year ago.