Suddenly, a group of junior bankers at Goldman Sachs had an unexpected meeting added to their calendar.
It was the spring, and Wall Street was in the midst of a revolution amongst junior bankers, including those at Goldman, raising concerns about being overworked.
Goldman's top TMT bankers, including partners Sam Britton, Matt Gibson, and Kenneth Hirsch, agreed to meet with the bank's juniors this spring to discuss their concerns.
One current and two former Goldman Sachs analysts told Insider that times with the partners were put on their calendars without advance notice. The sources spoke under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The three executives individually met with small groups of about five to eight analysts via Zoom to discuss their concerns. Britton and Gibson are co-heads of the firm's TMT investment-banking division while Hirsch is its co-chair.
During the meetings, the executives are said to have touted stats like the success of the bank's protected Saturday policy, which CEO David Solomon reinforced in March.
"They just ran off a bunch of numbers to us and then expected us to feel placated, and then kind of just ended the meeting. They were barely over 10 minutes," said one Goldman analyst who recently departed.
Britton and Gibson told juniors that, in light of the firm's sky-high deal volumes, the TMT division was taking a more selective eye toward business mandates, and had even turned down new business in some cases, all three sources said.
The two divisional co-heads had a clear message, according to another former analyst: "We've literally turned down mandates because we just don't have the manpower.'"
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs declined to comment for this story.
Goldman's not alone, as a Raymond James exec told Insider in June, he had heard of some firms, mainly in the middle-market, having to turn down business in light of being short-staffed.
Coverage groups like TMT have been hit hard by attrition
Goldman Sachs' TMT M&A practice advised on more than 100 deals in 2020, roughly $275 billion in announced deal volume, according to data service Dealogic. Among its top deals of 2020, Goldman advised Slack on its announced sale to Salesforce for more than $27 billion in stock and cash.
Britton and Gibson's comments come as the TMT group at Goldman has been among the bank's coverage teams to lose the most analysts, the sources said.
Just four of its original 16 analysts who joined its TMT group in San Francisco in 2019 stayed for their traditional two years on the desk, according to the people. The remaining 12 departed prematurely — a retention rate of just 25%.
The third banker, a current Goldman analyst, described the average starting size of analyst classes in a given coverage group in each respective office like New York or San Francisco as being composed of about 15 to 20 members. Between 60% to 90% of a class generally sticks around to cross the two-year finish line, this person said.
The fact that just four of the group's analysts lasted to the end of two years was "crazy," they added.
Hiring reinforcements has helped slightly, sources said, but many don't come with much experience, leaving trained analysts to pick up the brunt of the work.
A senior Goldman Sachs executive told Insider in June the firm was considering dropping the number of conversations it has with candidates in an effort to quickly staff up.
