Put up the first ARS question that we've been asking everyone. Very pleased to have Goldman Sachs with us, continuing this afternoon's presentations from the company, Chairman and CEO David Solomon. David, thank you for being here. Maybe the best place to start is just, you know, high-level macro overview. I thought your comments in the July earnings call were more constructive, and you've kind of been on the more bearish side before that. So just maybe kind of what's your latest view on the macro backdrop and operating environment?
Sure. First of all, thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here. It's a kind of an annual rite of passage in the fall. You know, I think we are constructive. The environment's definitely gotten better, and you know, it's interesting, you know, you said I was kind of on the bearish side. If we were sitting here a year ago and we were looking at where inflation was, what the Fed was clearly saying it was going to do, we were six months into the, you know, the war in Ukraine, it was kind of hard to be optimistic. And candidly, as I talked to clients, I talked to CEOs, I talked to investors, there was tremendous cautiousness because we were really changing the environment materially.
Now, actually think the economy's been more resilient over the course of the last 12 months than we expected. I think government spending obviously has been a huge tailwind, which has helped in that, you know, in that context to some degree. Markets have been more resilient, but I think the chances of a soft landing now are materially higher. And certainly we've got inflation to a better place. Definitely in the camp that inflation might still be a little bit sticky, and we've got more work to do and maybe kind of stickier, higher rates longer. But we're in a much, much better position, and the capital markets are also starting to open up and react a little bit more positively.
So I think it's a more constructive tone going forward, but, you know, it's still an uncertain time because we haven't navigated our way through this, and so as an organization, we stay focused on risk management, we stay focused on optimization.
So continuing to see, you know, evidence of capital markets activity, and I guess, are you continuing to see evidence of capital markets activity and strategic dialogue picking up? You know, maybe how are client engagements and the prospect of resurgent activity levels trending? And then, you know, any comments on quarter-to-date trading activity now that you've kind of opened that door up last quarter?
Sure. You know, a couple of thoughts. First of all, there's no question that the environment for capital markets activity is improving. It's still way, way off what I'll call, you know, cycle averages, but definitely improving. Just before I came up here, I met with the, you know, the Arm management. You know, it's the middle of their IPO. You know, from everything I hear, that's going well. We have a handful of other very significant IPOs in the market. It's been quite a while since I could say to you, we have a handful of very significant IPOs in the market. That's an improvement. But I do believe that if these go well, and it feels at the moment like they're progressing nicely, it kind of creates a virtuous cycle of bringing more of the pent-up backlog, you know, to market.
So I definitely think we're seeing capital markets improvement, more confidence in the capital markets. And by the way, this is not surprising, Jason, when you step back, you know, I've said when you have a reset in capital markets like this, history tells you it takes about six quarters, you know, to get things to kind of resort and get things to reopen. What do you know? We're kind of six quarters. So I think things are improving, but we're still a ways away from normalized levels with respect to capital markets. But I, you know, I think that trend, if the macro environment, if we're correct on the macro environment, I think that'll continue to improve through the rest of the year and into 2024, and we'll get back to a more normalized environment for capital markets.
You know, M&A is, you know, it's a longer lead time, and so, you know, you don't decide you want to do something strategic on Tuesday and do it, you know, a week later. Last summer, M&A activity shut down because there was enormous skepticism and concern about the economic environment. There's no question CEOs feel a lot better right now, much more leaning toward good prospects for a soft landing. So it wouldn't surprise you inside our shop, there's more strategic dialogue going on with companies. And, you know, I, I do think you'll see an acceleration, you know, of that. It just. That will lag the capital markets pick up, you know, for sure. In addition, I'd just say financial sponsors have really been closed.
You know, the private equity guys and the financial sponsors for the last 12 months, they haven't been selling things, they haven't been buying things. You know, the way their business models work, and by the way, this is a huge part of investment banking activity, hard for them to make money when they don't sell anything, hard for them to make money when they don't buy anything. And so you just kind of know that's not going to continue, you know, forever. And as that ecosystem opens up, and I think you're starting to see signs of life there, too, you know, that puts another tailwind to capital markets activity and then ultimately M&A activity.
With respect to trading, what I would say is, you know, the activity levels have been good, you know, this quarter, but I think you're aware that we're coming off a, you know, relatively tough comp versus the third quarter, you know, last year. You know, I'd also highlight that you should, you know, look, September is important because of the seasonal slowdown. And so obviously, we have a few weeks to go, and we'll see where we come out.
Got it. Now maybe remind us of your key areas of focus and execution priorities, and has anything changed?
No, nothing's changed. I mean, our key areas of focus, you know, first and foremost, we're focused on continuing to grow our wallet share and our financial, you know, business, our Global Banking and Markets franchise. Franchise is performing very well. So we're really good about where the client franchise is. Feel very, very good about, you know, our leading banking franchise and our, you know, our, you know, kind of top position, with, you know, with what we see as number one in the trading businesses broadly, and, you know, strong returns, you know, across that business through the cycle. You know, second, in Asset & Wealth Management, we have two key priorities: growing management fees, which we've obviously made a lot of progress on, and also continuing to reduce the historical principal investment balance sheet, and we're continuing to make progress on that.
And then obviously, you know, in the platforms, continuing to bring the remaining businesses that we have in platforms to profitability. And so we're executing and feel good about where we are.
Maybe we can kind of delve into each of those, segments maybe a bit more specifically. On global banking and markets, it uses roughly two-thirds of the firm's capital. You have materially improved, the return profile in recent years. Maybe what are some of the key opportunities going forward, and how will you be able to maintain your market share gains?
Yeah, we feel very good about the market share gains. There's a lot of data on the market share gains and the work we've done. You know, obviously, you know, quarter to quarter, there can be movement around that, but we think they're broadly sustainable, and there's more room to continue to make progress. We took our top 100 focus, and we moved it to top 150, and we continue to make progress against the top 150 clients. And there's upshare there that there's upside there that can lead to additional, you know, wallet share for us. The financing business continues to grow. And we think it's, it's a little bit like a virtuous cycle because you finance your clients more, you wind up with a bigger share of wallet.
And I just think we're positioned, given the scale we've driven across this business, to be a leader there, and that creates, you know, more, you know, more of a tailwind for us. So we feel good. The returns through the cycle, we've seen. I think we've shown that we, we returns of this business through the cycle, and we continue to be confident that we can deliver on those, those, you know, those, those prospects as we move forward.
And then on Asset & Wealth Management, clearly a business you've emphasized more in recent years. Maybe just talk through how your business is differentiated and what gives you confidence your ability to continue to grow and hit those targets, you talked about, and maybe what opportunities you see as most impactful.
Sure. And you know, we had five asset management businesses and a wealth business we put together. You know, whenever you do that, there's a process around that. We've made a lot of progress, particularly in the last 12 months, you know, on the process of getting that organized. We think it's a super unique platform, where, you know, we're one of the top asset managers in the world, the 56th largest active asset manager in the world. We supervise $2.7 trillion of assets. We have $1 trillion of wealth assets on the platform from our, you know, predominantly our ultra-high net worth business. We have about $450 billion of alternatives.
I think one of the things that makes the platform unique is the scale and global nature of it, and the fact that we have really strong positions across the whole ecosystem of both public markets and private markets. So a leading liquidity platform, a very, very top fixed income platform, a top 10 active equity platform, and a top 5 alternatives platform. And our ability to tailor solutions for clients, broadly in a way that's differentiated, given the breadth and the scope of what we have, we think is very compelling, and we're hearing that from clients. We recently won, and we announced a very, very significant OCIO mandate, that was quite significant. We're pitching for others. We think we're a leader in that business. We think there's opportunity there.
On our fundraising target that we had set out a few years ago, we're at $204 billion of alternatives and continuing to make progress on that. That doesn't stop when we hit our $225 billion target, but we're, you know, getting there. You know, we continue to grow our management fees. I look back, you know, over the course of the last five years and see a real move in the growth of our management fees, and obviously, that won't stop there. In our Investor Day, Marc Nachmann laid out, you know, a growth trajectory for that business. He set a margin target. We continue to make progress, you know, on that margin target.
We said at the time, that wasn't an aspirational margin target, but we thought it was a good place to start. And of course, we think we've had the right strategy in reducing the legacy balance sheet. We get that, those historical principal investments down to $15 billion by the end of 2024, and then, generally, 0 by the end of 2026. I think we're on track, and we'll continue to report. We're actively trying to continue to sell those assets. It's a complicated environment. With respect to the commercial real estate and stuff we have, I think again, this quarter, you will see some impairments and marks in commercial real estate, but to a lesser degree than you saw in the second quarter.
Okay. You know, a lot in there. You know, you talked about selling down the historical principal investments, you know, sub $15 billion by the end of next year. If you look, I think your SCB came down 80 basis points in the most recent CCARs coming into effect October 1. I suspect that contributed to it. You know, you're going to hit your - you kind of reaffirm your targets despite the fact the environment is probably more challenging to sell assets. Do you want to talk to, you know, the ability and kind of when you think you can get to kind of zero, and just how does that drive the lower SCB?
Well, there's no question that our performance, you know, around the SCB was impacted by the actions we've taken. Look, this was clearly the right strategic decision for the firm, you know, going back, you know, 4-plus years when we started wrestling with this. You know, I do think if you think about the firm and the firm's balance sheet, and the firm continued on the strategy, which, by the way, with the regulatory world, you know, was not the right strategy. If you continued on the strategy and had, you know, the size balance sheet we had kind of coming out of the last decade, we'd be in a very different position than we are today. So we've diligently worked on selling stuff down.
We believe that we have a responsibility to make the right prudent decisions, you know, from a value perspective, but also releasing capital is very, very important in this. So we're moving with haste. We've made a lot of progress. You know, we'll give you an update at the next earnings call, as we do every quarter, but we feel very good about what we set out, that we can be down to $15 billion at the end of 2024 and, you know, generally, you know, negligible by the end of 2026. And as we do that, it, you know, it's going to some more capital in that context.
And then you headed off on the other questions, but, you know, I was going to ask you about the mid-twenties kind of margin for AWM does seem a little bit low relative to kind of the other asset managers. You know, ultimately, where do you think you can drive that business towards?
Well, I think it was appropriate given where we were and where we were starting to set that margin. But we were very, very thoughtful in the language we used to say that's not our aspiration. You know, as we make progress, and we're making a lot of progress on that, you know, we'll give you an update as to what you can expect. But at this point, I'm not, you know, I'm not going farther than what Marc said publicly.
Then, I guess, where are you in terms of putting all those businesses together? Are they fully integrated?
We've made a lot of progress. I mean, these businesses are now organized on a platform. I think we've got the right leadership. Yes, there's been some people movement around that. It's been the appropriate thing to do. Some of it's been at our, you know, at our direction, a good amount of it. Some of it's been at our direction, and so we needed... Whenever you put businesses together, you know, there's going to be disruption and there's going to be volatility. And I just feel like the firm has done this. If you go back and you're a student of Goldman Sachs, when Goldman Sachs put fixed income and J. Aron together in the 1990s, there was a lot of volatility around getting that together, some leadership leaving, some leadership, you know, elevated.
When Cohn and Lloyd Blankfein put FICC and equities together in the early 2000s, there was a lot of agita. There were some very important partners that decided they didn't have the right seat at the table, and they decided to move on. This is a path we've been down before, and here we're putting five businesses together. So there was some movement, but we've done that hard work over the last three years. We're in a really good place with it, and we're excited about the prospects for this platform. It's a powerful platform. We think we're well positioned, and one of the things that gives us such confidence is the feedback from our clients about our offering.
The mandates we're competing for and winning gives us a lot of comfort that we have something unique that can be powerful and can grow over time, and we're very focused on that. We think it strengthens Goldman Sachs. We think it's something we're good at. We've had good performance in our asset management business over a long period of time. We believe we have a performance culture. We're going to continue to invest in that performance culture, and we'll also continue to invest in a culture of client service in that business. And I think if you perform and have great client experience, you do well in those businesses.
Then lastly, on AWM, I think it was maybe a couple of weeks ago, you announced the sale of the Personal Financial Management to Creative Planning. Just maybe, you know, how does this kind of fit into the overall AWM strategy?
So we made a decision when we looked at the high net worth strategy, that we were better to take the investment that would be necessary to continue to do that and reallocate it to continuing to grow our ultra high net worth strategy. Our ultra high net worth strategy has been growing dramatically. It's a big business. We're clearly there, there's room for us to continue to grow around the world. And we- one of our themes, just in our strategy over the last, you know, 18 months, is simplification and focus. And this was an opportunity to simplify that strategy and focus, so we decided that was the, you know, that was the appropriate decision. When the deal closes sometime this fall, we'll book a gain. And, you know, we'll then focus our resources and our attention to growing the ultra-high net worth business.
Now, we have an ability to access, you know, high net worth to our relationships with RIAs. We continue to service RIAs very broadly across a broad platform, and we do think that's an opportunity to bring more assets into our asset management business. We also think this is pure for us to have our ultra high net worth business and with the RIAs, to have no conflicts of having our own RIA platform inside. And so we think this is the right strategic move, and it creates a focus for us on ultra high net worth.
Got it. And maybe shifting gears to the consumer side of the house. You know, you've clearly been narrowing your ambitions over the last few quarters. Just maybe any update you can provide us in terms of how that process is going? You know, GreenSky, you're obviously taking a look at, and just maybe your consumer strategy more broadly, particularly in credit cards.
Yeah. So with respect to GreenSky, you know, we've transmitted to the market that we're running a process on that. I don't have anything other to report other than when we reach a conclusion, we'll report. But we feel good about where we are in that process and, you know, more to come on that. Our goal, as I stated, is, you know, to bring the rest of the platform to profitability. We're making progress. We've narrowed the focus. We've executed on a bunch of things to narrow the focus, so we're operating the card platforms. You probably saw we made an important hire with a lot of experience, a gentleman named Bill Johnson, to help us continue to drive the focus to profitability on those, and we'll continue to evaluate as we go forward.
But that focus has gotten a lot narrower and a lot more specific. I feel good about the progress we've made.
I think you were talking about pre-tax break even by 2025, was the-
We're continuing to, you know, drive, you know, to profitability as quickly as we can on those platforms.
Got it. Obviously, Endgame obviously occupied a lot of our summer reading. Maybe if you could kind of, you know, we'll put up the next ARS question. But can you maybe just talk about your thought of the proposal, impact on Goldman? What are you doing to prepare?
Yeah. So I mean, it's a big rule proposal. I'd say the most significant change, you know, to the regulatory, you know, regulatory rules since the financial crisis and Dodd-Frank. You know, if you go back to Dodd-Frank, I think it's important to recognize that, you know, coming out of Dodd-Frank, the largest financial institutions materially increased their capital, I think 2x plus. Materially increased their liquidity, materially decreased their leverage. The largest financial institutions go through a rigorous stress test every year. The largest financial institutions also have been through some real-world stress tests over the course of the last 5 years and have performed well and have really been, you know, very stable and very constructive, at difficult times. And, you know, so I think the large financial institutions are in very good shape.
So you have to, I think when you look at this, you have to ask the question: What are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish? And if the answer to that is to make the system more safe and sound, it's not clear that more capital is the best answer to that, and there are trade-offs. And so is this the best way to do it? I think is a reasonable question. And so I then think you've got to step back and say, okay, you know, that's a complex question to answer, but what do we know based on looking at the proposal? Well, there are three things that I believe, based on the proposal, that would absolutely be true if it went into place. The first is, the cost of credit would go up for big companies all the way down to small businesses.
The second is that the U.S. competitiveness in capital markets would decrease. The third is that more activity would be pushed out of the regulated part of the banking system into the unregulated or shadow system. So, you know, if you look at that, our view is these capital rules go too far. Of course, we believe and want a safe and sound system, but you have to ask, is this doing more damage to the system than providing benefit? So, you know, we do not think this proposal, as put forward, is good for economic growth and competitiveness in the United States. We'll comment, you know, during the comment period, and we'll see how this progresses.
I know a number of other people here have commented, you know, on impact as put forward, for us, these rules, if they went in place as put forward, would increase our capital by slightly more than 25%.
Capital or RWAs?
Capital.
Capital. By 20... You said 25%?
Slightly more than 25%.
Um-
But I'd also highlight, you know, as you know, and we were actually talking, you know, before, you know, the industry has been very nimble at adapting, you know, to the rule set. So, you know, as the rule set comes forward, as it evolves, you know, the industry will adapt and the markets will adapt. I think the question we really have to answer is, is this good for the system? Is this good for U.S. competitiveness? Are we doing the right thing? Is this enhancing safety and soundness? You know, more capital does not necessarily enhance safety and soundness versus creating other friction.
I guess in a hypothetical world, if the proposal goes through, you know, as is, you know, what does Goldman do? I imagine sitting still isn't an option. Do you see kind of the... some of the benefits from either, is it shrinking RWAs? Is it exiting businesses? Is it charging more? Just, you know, how do you go about managing that?
Yes, we adapt. I mean, it's just, you know, I was talking before. You know, we are pretty good at adapting to whatever the rule set is, and there have been other rules that have been put forward where people have flipped out, and the industry adapts, and it comes in all different forms. You do certain things differently, or you don't do certain things, or you charge more for certain services. There are certain parts of this that I think can migrate stuff to parts of the unregulated system. By the way, we participate as an asset manager in parts of the unregulated system. We have a huge private credit platform, so we can benefit from some of that too. But on the other hand, there are also certain parts of it that are hard to push into the unregulated system.
You know, Prime is a very, very important part of the economic engine that provides liquidity to markets, and that's not easy, you know, to push someplace else. So there'll be, there'll be an adaptation, there'll be changes, there'll be changes in pricing. But for the moment, I'm more focused. We're obviously doing all the work that you would expect us to do. On top of it, we're all over it. But I'm more focused on, at the moment, we're in a comment period. I don't think these rules make sense. We need to comment. We need to see what we can do to make these success.
I guess, out of curiosity, where do you see maybe the greatest chance of having success in-
I'm not going to offer a point of view, you know, on the record on that. You know, I think there's a lot here that needs to be discussed. And by the way, you're hearing out of Washington, there are lots of different points of view. There are different points of view on the Fed. We just saw Bill Dudley yesterday, the former, you know, chair of the New York Fed, put out, you know, an opinion piece, you know, stating his view. There are lots of different points of view on this. So I think this is going to be an interesting process, and it's, you know, speculating as to how this all plays out. We have to be prepared. We're doing what we're supposed to do, but it's early to speculate.
That's fair. Why don't we put up the next ARS question in the... Is that the next one? I had a different one. But as the audience asks you that, I'll, I'll continue. You know, with the proposal, I guess, how does it thinking of—how does it influence your thinking about capital return and maybe, you know, through the cycle capital, through the cycle, return targets?
Yeah. So, you know, with respect to capital, we, we view ourselves as stewards of the capital that's, you know, that's granted to us at all times. And through this transition, we certainly, we certainly feel we, you know, an enormous responsibility to continue to steward that capital. We've been very committed to capital return and making capital return more consistent. It's one of the reasons why we've tripled our dividend, you know, over the course of the period of time from, from 2019 to now, and we just raised our dividend by another 10%. So we continue to be committed to that, you know, that consistent, that consistent capital return. You know, obviously, at this moment in time, we said at the end of the second quarter and the third quarter, we would increase our buybacks from second quarter levels.
As we move forward from here, we will continue to do buybacks, but at a lower level, you know, given the uncertainty. We'll obviously evaluate and be nimble and flexible and see as we learn more as we go forward, as we go forward from here.
I guess one more on that topic. Well, let's go, let's go to the ARS question, but we can stick with that. Just, what can Goldman do to most improve its valuation? Building consistent return revenue streams is kind of what you talked about a lot of. Maybe put up the next one. Thoughts on through the cycle target.
You asked about targets. It's too early, you know, to talk about targets, given, you know, where the world is. So at a point in time, we have more clarity. If something needs to change, you know, we'll certainly talk about it. But, you know, as we sit today, we really believe the two primary businesses that are driving the firm are mid-teens through the cycle. Obviously, the asset management, asset wealth management business will be mid-teens, you know, very, very consistency with less volatility when we get the balance sheet down. The markets business will be a volatile business, but we think we've really upgraded the returns, and we believe in the current construct, you know, pre the world at mid-teens through the cycle.
So it's too early to comment on what the implications of this will be, but we'll watch it, and we'll obviously, you know, communicate at the appropriate time if there is a change. Not clear there would be.
Fair enough. There's been obviously a lot of headlines on Goldman Sachs of late. You know, some of them you addressed last week in interviews, so I'm not going to rehash that. But there's, you know, certainly been also outside media attention around several kind of senior-level departures. Maybe just kind of from your seat, how would you describe the firm's culture, talent? Maybe talk to the attrition-
Sure.
-a bit about.
Sure. You know, I'd certainly agree there's been a lot of headlines, there's been a lot of noise. Sometimes you know, I'm amazed at the attention, you know, that we get from a media perspective. But here are a couple of things that I'd certainly offer. You know, first of all, the culture of the firm is incredibly important, and the partnership of the culture, I think, is a real differentiator. It's unique to Goldman Sachs. It's served the firm well. It allows us to serve our clients well. It allows us to attract and retain you know, really extraordinary people. It's unique, it's different, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm glad we have it, and I think it's a huge beneficiary, you know, to the firm.
There's nothing that's going on in the context of partner transitions that's different than any other cycle. You know, we said at Investor Day, back in February that the last, you know, the last two-year cycle was the lowest partner transition cycle, over the course of the last decade. If you go back to 2014, we have a higher transition than what we had in the 2020 to 2022 period. And if you look we're now at the beginning of cycle because we made partners, last fall, the cycle is tracking within the band of what normal is. You know, we run a partnership of a certain size. We want to elect 80 partners every two years. That means 80 partners have to leave every two years.
Obviously, every time a partner leaves, you know, we get press articles and attention, but there's nothing that's happening that's different than what we'd expect. Part of the rejuvenation of the, you know, the talent pool is people want opportunities to step up. This is part of the life cycle of Goldman Sachs.
Then, you know, I guess, when I look at Goldman's valuation, I think it's 1.1x book, 9x earnings. You know, what do you think needs to happen to trigger a rerating? And, you know, what gives you confidence you'll get there?
Well, we're going to, we're going to continue to simplify the story. We're going to continue to execute on what we said that we're going to do around our core businesses. As we make progress in the asset management business, that will grow. That will give more ballast and more consistently. Hopefully, that will help. As you know, people continue to see that our markets and banking, our banking and markets business can perform through the cycle. Hopefully, that will help. But I'd highlight that we've grown the earnings materially, we've grown the book value materially, and we've grown the dividend materially. We're going to continue to do that. We've done that in a lot of different environments over long periods of time. And so, you know, do I wish the multiple was higher? Yes.
Do I think if we continue to execute on a simpler core story, will the multiple at some point go higher? I'd like to think so, but it's really my, my job to get some when the multiple moves. It's my job to execute and do what's right for shareholders with our broad leadership team. We're very focused on that. We're going to continue to execute. We think we're making a lot of progress, and we feel very good about where we are. Now, one of the things that would help that, obviously, is a better operating environment. Certainly, this has not been a great operating environment for the last 12 months.
I mean, it's not surprising that an institution that's heavily reliant on investment capital markets trading and has a bunch, even though we're reducing, of private equity, growth equity, and real estate on its balance sheet, has had some earnings headwinds in this environment. But the environment is getting better. That's not the normal through the cycle environment. And I think if we continue to execute on the core things I've highlighted as we've been sitting here, you know, we'll make progress, and over time, investors will, you know, reward us as they see appropriate.
Right. I guess, I mean, is it safe to kind of view 2023 as a kind of maybe transition year to kind of get to some of those good things you talked about? Clearly, it's not like the investment banking environment is getting better. It sounds like, you know, the consumer business should be left for drag. In commercial real estate, sounds like a lot of the markdowns will be done this year. As you kind of think about, you know, 2024, you know, it feels like I'm moving closer-ish to a mid-teens type of operating environment.
Yeah, I mean, I think 2024, you know, should be a better year for sure. You know, I think there are two things going on in 2023. One is we made a strategic pivot with a part of our business, and we've been executing on it. This is the narrowing of the consumer, and there's some friction with that, and we're working through that. And we've made a lot of progress this year. I think we've executed well on what we're doing. We continue to have more work to do, and we're executing. But the second part is not a transition. The second part is, it's pretty lousy environment for our business. And, you know, that had a greater impact, a greater impact on the performance of the firm over the course of the last year than the, than the consumer business.
And so we're going to continue to execute on the transition, as we said, in the consumer business, and we're going to continue to execute on our core strategy, and the environment will get better as the environment gets better, and we will benefit from that. We definitely are correlated to an improving environment.
Just as a point of follow-up on that, commercial real estate impairments, I guess there are $400-ish million last quarter, should be less this quarter?
... Yes, you, I mean, I'll just repeat what I said, because my words were purposeful. We're still going to have some markdowns and some impairment from commercial real estate, but it'll be less than last quarter.
Right. All right. And I guess we're, you know, I, I guess, you know, with, with kind of traditional bank lending, you know, you kind of book the reserves and allocate, recognize over time in a mark-to-market world. You recognize these losses obviously sooner. Kind of, where do you think you are in terms of marking the CRE book?
You know, you tell me what the environment's going to be. If we're right about the soft landing, we've come a long way. If we're wrong and we wind up in a recession, for anybody that still owns, you know, owns commercial real estate, probably more headwinds. However, we'll highlight, we're continuing to reduce what we have, you know, actively, and so we continue to make progress on it.
And maybe be helpful with the audience is, you know-
This is all you understand. This is all—this is mostly what we're talking about here is legacy, you know, alternatives investments, you know, you know, many of which have been made over the last decade. You know, that we're now moving out of the historical principal investment bucket and reducing, you know, that strategy.
Right. Right. You know, you mentioned before about the ability to kind of adapt. And, you know, at Goldman, I think we did it when, you know, SLR first came out, when SCB kind of, I think everyone kind of freaked out at first and then the firm managed. Maybe just talk to kind of how you go about kind of tackling these new proposals and maybe things that are kind of once they're finalized. You know, just kind of what are some levers you have to do?
Well, you know, I think we run a pretty nimble organization. We've got a lot of really, really smart people, and, you know, they're zealously focused on our clients. But we also have a lot of people, you know, in the organization that are zealously focused on optimizing and helping us run Goldman Sachs as efficiently as we can. I think one of the things about our business is you've got, you know, variables that you can't control, like the environment, and then as there are rules or there are things that you can control and make choices on, you adapt, you adjust, and you evolve. And so I think we're pretty good at that. It doesn't happen instantaneously, but we've got a long track record of doing it with all sorts of change, all sorts of rule proposals, all sorts of evolution.
The firm, you know, continues to manage, to grow, to grow its earnings, to grow its position. I'm very confident that no matter what's thrown at us in this context, we'll continue to evolve and adapt, and we'll do what we have to do to make the right decisions for our shareholders. We're very narrow, but focused, and we continue to do what's right for our shareholders.
One piece I always get asked questions about it. In your kind of looking at GreenSky, you're committed to the deposit-taking franchise with Marcus, I'd imagine. Where does kind of credit card fit in?
Well, remember, and I've, you know, I've said this publicly, these credit card platforms are partnerships that are longer term contracts with our clients. You know, at the moment, we're in those contracts, we're executing, we're making it better. You know, there's a broader strategic question about the long-term fit. We haven't, we haven't said a lot about that, but we clearly don't have an at-scale business. We're operating what we have efficiently. We've said we're not going to add to it. We're going to try to operate it more efficiently and improve it, and we'll continue to communicate around it as decision.
David, thank you for your time.
Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Thank you, David.
Thank you.