Merrill Lynch analyst Guy Moszkowski says that Goldman Sachs is looking to buy a deposit-taking bank to avoid the liquidity problems that were Bear’s downfall and may now hit Merrill Lynch itself.
Goldman’s chief financial officer, David Viniar, told Mr. Moszkowski in a meeting that “the firm had done extensive analysis on the degree to which it might be able to deploy excess deposits to fund core businesses,” Reuters cited the analyst as saying.
“We still would not ascribe very high probability, but if a bank with excess deposits were available at the right price, with no need for Goldman to exit existing businesses, we’d no longer rule it out,” Reuters cited Mr. Moszkowski as saying in a client note after meeting with four senior Goldman executives last week. “These are strange times indeed.”
–Deal Book, 29 Jul 2008
Nouriel Roubini has mentioned the same. In a recent Yahoo! Finance interview he said none of the major investment banks will remain independent. In his opinion, even Goldman will be forced to merge with a bank because the broker-dealer model is permanently broken.
See his comments here.