Meet Goldman Sachs’ Global Co-Head of M&A and Soccer Super Fan Stephan Feldgoise

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Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York

Liana Baker

Michelle F Davis

Crystal Tse

Happy Friday. It’s the trio of Liana Baker, Michelle F. Davis and Crystal Tse bringing you an interview with the global co-head of M&A at Goldman Sachs. We also have an update on Arm’s potential valuation and COINBASE does a deal.

Today's top stories

Bankers ARM IPO at big valuation.
Norway’s Equinor to buy Suncor Energy.
Coinbase crypto asset manager.
‘Yellowstone’ studio sale

A different kind of pitch

Stephan Feldgoise retired from Goldman Sachs in 2017 and spent nearly a year on a break, investing in companies, working with non-profits and playing a lot of soccer. He even competed in an international tournament. We spoke to him about his return to the bank, his perch as global co-head of M&A since , and what the future holds for dealmaking. The bank held its second-ever investor day this week and click to read about the takeaways and reaction—Liana Baker, Michelle F. Davis and Crystal Tse

What’s the outlook for the rest of the year in M&A?

Certainly the market's been quite soft for the last call it three, four, five months.

green shoots are pretty substantial and there's strengthening in thefinancing markets. When we look at our new mandate checks that come in, they're running up substantially from where they were at the end of the year and into January.

The strategic imperatives coming out of have not changed in terms of people's desire and focus to strengthen their companies, to diversify their companies, to reinforce their supply chains.

The question is, how long does that take to materialize into volume? We're running below five-year averages now, certainly below ’21 and the first half of ’22but the foundation's there. There’s just an adjustment of valuation expectations and returns on the buy side that people have to digest.

How do you run the M&A group?

Every job I've taken, I said, all right, how do I define this job? And how do I make it entrepreneurial? How do I change it? How do I grow it? Goldman Sachs has been No. 1 in M&A for a very long time. Taking over that business was very humbling, but I said to myself and to Mark Sorrell, my co-head, how are we going to make it even better? How are we going to make it more impactful to clients? You have to think entrepreneurially. Where are the weaknesses? How do we crack this sector that we haven't been strong in? How do I get to that client? We do it every day and do it with businesses, but to be successful in M&A, I tell my team to be entrepreneurial, be memorable, know people's business, be personable. Understand businesses are about people—employees, boards are people.

What’s a Rep 1?

Rep 1 is how we describe it in banking. We’ve had a structure in place for decades where people have lists. It’s not more complicated than that but making sure that the right people have the right companies with the right industry expertise and managing how they cover those companies alongside their M&A partners is how we think about it. But it’s powerful, right? Particularly, as you think about One GS and delivering the firm. Someone needs to wake up every day and say, I am responsible for company X, bringing to bear all that Goldman offers.” There’s a broad bag of tools, whether it be transaction banking, asset management, wealth services or financing so Rep 1 needs to be hyper skilled. They’re part of and lead a team. Teams need leaders. It’s important for clients to know who that is and it’s important for the person who covers them to know. Rep 1 is the tip of the spear.

Stephan Feldgoise Source: Goldman Sachs

Tell us about competing at the Maccabi Games in Israel in 2017. Did you score a goal and what do you like about soccer?

I played attacking midfielder and defensive midfielder. I did score a goal against Chile and it was a fantastic experience, but the best part is the people. You’re with people from Argentina, Brazil, England. I think it’s the third- or fourth-largest sporting event in terms of participants. There's tens of thousands of people. Obviously it’s not the Olympics or the World Cup but it’s reasonably high-level people. It’s just an extraordinary experience. The other thing though is the training. It’s hard to be post 45 years old training for an event like that, which is physical and grueling.

I love the sport. My kids love the sport. I chair a youth development academy that puts a lot of kids into pro soccer academies. I do it because I love it but it’s also a dimension outside of being a banker.

What did you learn from taking a year off from banking?

It was a good break. I learned a lot. Doing something completely different gives you a different perspective on things. Since I've come back about five years ago, I have a refreshed perspective.

It’s not just all about unilateral finance. Clients are people and clients want to have relationships with people that are interested in them and that they're interested in as well.

Being able to have conversations with clients that aren't just narrow and only about business but provides insight into what drives the way people think, how people view the world and think about emotions—all of those things are important in doing deals.

M&A focus

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is in to buy a stake in Rocco Forte Hotel that could value the luxury hotels group at about €1.3 billion,

A slowdown in spending by streaming services, higher interest rates and a tough regulatory climate have cratered the once-hot market for independent film and TV studios.

Yellowstone

Photographer: Cam McLeod

That’s scuttled deals for properties including the studio behind ‘Yellowstone,”

Norway’s Equinor to buy Suncor Energy UK for $850 million as Europe races to replace Russian supplies.

Coinbase, still reeling from a plunge in trading volume on its exchanges, is expanding into a less-volatile corner of the cryptocurrency ecosystem with the purchase of One River, Erik Schatzker

IPO watch

SoftBank’s Arm confirmed that it will pursue a listing solely in the US, rejecting calls from the UK government for a dual listing in its home market.

Global investment banks are pitching a yawning range of valuations for the chip designer, from $30 billion to $70 billion, Min Jeong Lee Swetha Gopinath

Who’s news

Chris Conforti is leaving Altimeter and joining a new firm as co-founder with former Whale Rock Capital Management partner Kristov Paulus, report Gillian Tan and Katie Roof. Kultura Capital Management is being structured as a hybrid fund that will focus on late-stage tech startups as well as public companies.

Week in review

Citigroup lost its senior-most dealmaker in the EMEA. SoftBank disappointed UK markets by ruling out a London listing of tech giant Arm. The $15 billion buyout of Toshiba started to look like a purely Japanese affair. Nestle kicked off the sale of a peanut allergy medicine that’s underwhelmed.

EQT is looking to raise as much as €3 billion from a listing of skincare business Galderma. Centricus Asset Management is set to hire Sajid Javid, the UK’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer. Infra investors are eyeing up Vattenfall’s district heating business in Berlin. Standard Chartered has started talks to support the levfin business of Credit Suisse’s investment-banking spinoff.