A view of the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 16, 2013.Brendan McDermid/Reuters
After a busy few weeks negotiating to help Bank of Nova Scotia extricate itself from its CI Financial stake, senior Goldman Sachs banker Andrew Chisholm has announced his retirement.
Mr. Chisholm spent almost three decades at Goldman, helping to build the financial institutions group and rising to become the firm's senior strategy officer. That made him one of the top Canadians at the bank.
In a memo dated June 2 (and reported by the New York Times) Goldman announced that Mr. Chisholm would step down at the end of the year.
In the meantime, he will continue to advise clients in financial institutions. One of those of late is Scotiabank, which had to figure out how to sell as much of its stake in CI as possible, and at the best price. Scotiabank's decision to sell has upset what had been a cooperative relationship between CI and Scotiabank, and Goldman was brought in to help Scotiabank get the deal done.
The end result of weeks of gruelling negotiations between Bank of Nova Scotia and CI (which was advised by GMP Securities) was an oversubscribed $2.3-billion share sale to public investors that got Scotiabank out of the majority of its holdings.
Mr. Chisholm, who lives in Toronto, joined Goldman in 1985. His career took him through mergers and acquisitions in New York and London and then into financial institutions. He ran the global financial institutions group from 2003 to 2012. He is a graduate of Queens University and the Ivey Business School at Western University.
Here is the memo announcing Mr. Chisholm's retirement.
June 2, 2014
Andrew A. Chisholm to Retire From Goldman Sachs After nearly 30 years of outstanding service to Goldman Sachs, Andrew A. Chisholm, the firm's senior strategy officer, has decided to retire at the end of the year. Andy will continue to co-chair the Commitments Committee and focus on many of our financial institution clients through at least the remainder of the year. We are pleased that he will become an advisory director at that time.
During his career, Andy played a critical role in helping to establish our Financial Institutions Group (FIG) franchise, which grew significantly during his tenure and had to respond to the sectoral challenges emanating from the financial crisis. He worked with several of the most important financial institutions in the world on many of the most significant transactions. In addition, he has helped develop and mentor many of our bankers in FIG.
As senior strategy officer, Andy worked closely with us and the Management Committee to advance our strategy in key areas across our businesses and identify significant trends across the competitive landscape.
Andy joined Goldman Sachs in New York in 1985 in Mergers & Acquisitions. He moved to London in 1987 and joined FIG within the Investment Banking Division while there. Andy ran FIG in Europe for many years, then returned to New York in 2003 to head FIG globally, until 2012, when he was named senior strategy officer. He was named managing director in 1996 and partner in 1998.
Andy is vice chair of the Advisory Board for the Ivey Business School in Canada, as well as a member of the Advisory Council for the City Works initiative at Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto.
Please join us in thanking Andy for his dedication to the firm and wishing him, his wife Laurie and their family all the best.
Lloyd C. Blankfein
Gary D. Cohn