Goldman Names Pair as Co-Presidents, COOs

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world’s biggest securities firm by market value, promoted Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried to co-presidents and co-chief operating officers.

The move would give Lloyd C. Blankfein deputies with experience in both trading and investment banking. Blankfein was named to take over as Goldman chief executive from Henry M. Paulson Jr., who has been nominated as U.S. Treasury secretary.

The appointments were made during Goldman’s board meeting in Beijing, spokesman Lucas van Praag said. Goldman also named John S. Weinberg a vice chairman of the New York-based firm. Cohn, Winkelried and Weinberg will join Goldman’s executive office.

Blankfein, 51, would be taking over from Paulson as declining stock and commodity markets raise concerns that trading and investment banking will slow. Together, those units made up almost 80% of Goldman’s first-half revenue.

Analysts including Guy Moszkowski at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Glenn Schorr at UBS expected Goldman to name co-presidents, continuing a tradition of power sharing at the top of the firm.

“It puts at least two people in the running to succeed Blankfein, and that’s an advantage because the board can look at two people and how they’re doing,” said Henry Higdon, managing partner at Higdon Partners, a 20-year-old executive search firm in New York that serves financial clients including Goldman. “These firms are so complex that they shouldn’t be run by one person.”