Goldman Sachs is in the process of hiring new additions to its asset management team in Stockholm and Copenhagen, as a combination of factors lead the banking group to increase staffing numbers in the Nordic region – across its divisions.
Peter Hermann, partner at Goldman Sachs and co-head of the firm’s Nordic region business, told IPE the Nordic region had been very important for Goldman Sachs for a long time, but that two new factors in particular had now led to the company stepping up its Nordic business.
“The pivot that happened is our strategy to have more local presence, and Brexit has only accelerated that trend and our need to ensure that we continue to be close to clients across Europe,” he said.
Across its four divisions of global markets, investment banking, asset management and consumer and wealth management, Goldman Sachs employee numbers in the two offices – which cover the Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic client markets – are increasing to 70 from 50 over the course of 2021, he said.
“The majority will be new hires, but the number also includes relocations from London,” said Hermann, who heads the Goldman Sachs Copenhagen office, which officially opened a year ago.
On 1 May, Soren Moller-Rasmussen, managing director in Goldman Sachs’ London office, is set to move to Copenhagen to become head of investment banking in Denmark.
On the asset management side, in February, the firm appointed Ossian Riisla to work out of the Stockholm office as its new head of asset management sales for Finland.
Another new asset management appointment has been made for the Copenhagen office, which has yet to be announced, and the firm is still looking for further new team member, according to Thomas Kønig, managing director at Goldman Sachs in Copenhagen, and its head of asset management Nordic region division.
After the latter two new hires, the Nordic region’s asset management team will consist of nine people, he said – and will therefore have increased by 25%.
“We’ve seen the situation in the pension and insurance sector in the Nordics where there’s been strong growth in our client base, and we can see our relevance continue to increase,” Kønig said.
“That sector in particular is engaging much more with asset managers when it comes to the three areas – ESG, alternatives and indexing,” he said.
Hermann said the Nordic pension and insurance market continued to be an important client base for Goldman Sachs, also on the global markets side.
“We’ve seen the Nordic and probably the Canadian pension sector as some of the more sophisticated pension markets in the world,” he said.
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