The starting gun has fired on a new race for succession at Goldman Sachs

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for The New York Times

Goldman Sachs Group chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

• Goldman Sachs announced Monday that securities division coheads, Pablo Salame and Isabelle Ealet, are leaving the bank in June.
• The departures fire the starting gun on a new race for succession at Goldman Sachs.

The starting gun has fired on a new race for succession at Goldman Sachs.

That was the news Monday, when Goldman Sachs announced that securities division coheads, Pablo Salame and Isabelle Ealet, are leaving the bank in June.

Their departures end a run atop the bank's historically strong but struggling securities division that lasted more than a decade for Salame and more than six years for Ealet. They'll both stay on as senior directors, according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider.

Their exit leaves Ashok Varadhan as the sole head of the division at a bank that has historically preferred to have multiple division heads, likely leading to questions about who may be elevated to replace Salame and Ealet.

Varadhan will be joined in the day-to-day management of the division by Paul Russo and Michael Daffey, co-chief operating officers for the equities business, Justin Gmelich and Jim Esposito, co-COOs of the fixed-income, currencies and commodities department, and Julian Salisbury, head of the firm's special situations group, according to the memo.

Together, the six executives have an average of 15 years as partner and 23 years at the firm.

Goldman Sachs brought in $4.39 billion in trading revenue in the first quarter, a 31% increase over last year's first quarter, and an 85% over the fourth quarter, which represented its worst quarterly performance since the financial crisis.

Revenue from trading commodities, where Ealet made her name, plunged last year to the lowest level since the firm went public 19 years ago, hit by losses in gas and power trading. Commodities trading revenue rebounded in the first quarter.

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