Goldman's big rebound raises some eyebrows

NEW YORK -- On a clear day, Lloyd Blankfein can look through the windows of his office on the 30th floor at the tip of Manhattan and see the Linden housing project in the East New York section of Brooklyn. That's the rough neighborhood where he grew up, the son of a mail sorter at the local post office.

No wonder Goldman's recent feats, which in any other environment would have drawn applause, this year are attracting derision and suspicion. As the economy struggled to shake off the recession and unemployment approached 10%, Goldman did some of the best investment banking of its 140-year history, posting record quarterly revenue of $13.8 billion and 65% growth in profits.

Just months after many on Wall Street debated whether the investment banking industry it dominated was dead, Goldman has proved the naysayers wrong. Shareholders have chalked up big gains from the bank's banner performance in the first half of the year. Goldman's stock has doubled since January.

"Goldman's success lies in the culture of the firm — of stability, strength and focus. It's a culture that you cannot build overnight," says Thomas Marsico, founder and CEO of Marsico Capital Management, which manages $51 billion in assets and owns 13 million Goldman shares. "At a time when Lehman and Bear (Stearns) were gone, Citi was dealing with its financial issues and Merrill (Lynch) its new leadership, Goldman executed for its customers."

However, Goldman's profits stand in sharp contrast to what the rest of the country is facing, hobbled with hundreds of thousands of job losses each month and hundreds of businesses shuttering on Main Street. Goldman also set aside $11.4 billion in the first half of this year for compensation and benefits for its employees, a 33% increase from last year. At a time when there has been intense focus on bankers' compensation, including congressional hearings, Goldman's decision has been hard to swallow on Main Street.