Goldman Said Likely To Writedown Billions

The Sunday Telegraph reports that things have been so tough out there recently that even the mighty Goldman Sachs is likely to announce that it has suffered billions in writedowns when it posts its fiscal first-quarter earnings Tuesday.

According to the newspaper, the Wall Street firm is looking at taking $3bn in writedowns in the first period, partly on the fall in value in its $2.3bn 4.9% stake in the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. Around $1.6bn is also expected to be written down in connection with leveraged loans, with $1.1bn in write-downs likely to come from assets held by Goldman's private equity unit.

Although a blow, the asset writedowns are not likely to push Goldman into loss (indeed the firm's first-quarter earnings are thought likely to come around $1.57bn, 50% or so down on the same period last year), and the nature of the writedowns will be relatively small compared to the figures posted in the fourth-quarter by rival firms like Citi, Merrill Lynch and UBS.

Finally, The Observer reports that senior execs over at Carlyle Group are probably crying in their coffee at the moment. The bosses own around 15% of failing hedge fund Carlyle Capital, and are staring at personal losses of some $135m. Nice money if you can afford to lose it!