As Goldman Sachs completed its $5bn stock offering Tuesday (in order to help with the early repayment of TARP funding from the US government), analysts were reviewing the firm's impressive first-quarter earnings ($1.8bn in profits in the period), and some are suggesting that all might not be what it seems.

The main issue is that, due to a change from fiscal-year reporting to year-end reporting (the firm has adopted the more familiar reporting model now that it has become a bank holding company), Goldman effectively reported earnings for two periods Tuesday - January - March 2009 and December 2008. And as all focus naturally fell on the spectacular Q1 09 figures, the fact that the firm reported a $1.3bn pretax loss in December originally got lost in all the euphoria. Richard Bove, the respected Rochdale Research bank analyst said in a note that: 'By separating the two periods, Goldman was able to blunt the impact of $2.3bn in asset writedowns over the two time frames.

In addition, The Wall Street Journal points out that Fox-Pitt Kelton analyst David Trone has suggested that the record revenues seen in Q1 09 in the firm's fixed income, currencies and commodities division were most likely helped by a large pay-out from AIG in respect of guarantees for credit default swaps. Trone also says that 'the rest of (Goldman's) results were well below expectations across investment banking, equities trading, asset management, and securities services'.

Whatever the analysts think, one thing seems certain - Goldman is determined to get the US government monkey off its back as soon as possible. CFO David Viniar said Tuesday: 'It's important to run our business the way it ought to be run'. He said that it is vital for the firm 'to be able to compensate deserving executives with bonuses much larger than those currently allowed by regulators', and that it wants to be free to bring in talented professionals on skilled foreign worker visas (something it is prohibited from doing while taking the TARP).

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