Goldman Sachs Is First Big U.S. Bank to Pull Out of Russia

JPMorgan, which holds assets for some clients in the country, is “unwinding Russian business” and is not pursuing new ventures there, Joseph Evangelisti, a company spokesman, said in a statement. The bank’s scaled-down operations also include managing Russia-related risks for clients and helping employees, he said. It has more than 100 workers in the country.

At the end of 2021, Goldman Sachs had more than $700 million in exposure to Russia, linked to loans and financial products like stocks and bonds, according to a recent regulatory filing. That’s just a small slice of the $1.5 trillion bank’s global operations.

JPMorgan’s business in Russia was not big enough to rank among its top 20 markets, according to a recent regulatory filing. The No. 20 market on its list was Mexico, with $4.9 billion in exposure. The bank has $3.7 trillion in total assets.

“None of us can fail to see this for what it is: the invasion of a sovereign state,” David M. Solomon, Goldman’s chief executive, said in a memo to employees on Thursday. “Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes, Ukrainian cities have suffered massive destruction and already there has been tragic loss of life. I know that this remains an extremely daunting and difficult time for many of our people.”

American and Western banks have pulled back from Russia since 2014, when the United States imposed penalties after President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea. The only major U.S. bank to keep a significant presence was Citigroup, which has about 3,000 employees there. Citigroup said on Wednesday that it would “assess our operations in the country.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/business/goldman-sachs-russia.html