Goldman Sachs has strongly denied talk in the market that it plans to move its Whitehall fund management platform from London to New York.
The talks had gained in strength because investors have become disappointed with the performance of the Whitehall funds.
“The rumours are utter nonsense,” said spokeswoman Fiona Laffan.
Goldman Sachs’ biggest exposure in Europe is to Germany, where the fund manager has bought large property portfolios near or at the top of the market.
At the end of 2007, Goldman Sachs bought a €1.7bn German office portfolio from German insurance company Allianz. The portfolio contained 190 opportunistic assets across the country.
Last year, Goldman failed to sell the €4.8bn portfolio of Karstadt department stores. Goldman was left with a 51%-stake in the portfolio and €3.5bn of existing debt it provided in the first place.
During the past summer, Goldman Sachs made its debut in Moscow where it bought Pokrovsky Hills, a 260-unit gated townhouse community in north-west Moscow, for $300m (€205m) from AIG. The tenants include embassies as well as Nestlé, Maersk Sealand, Shell, Conoco, Procter & Gamble, DHL, Caterpillar, Philips, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, IKEA and others.
Goldman Sachs has around 100 people working in its Whitehall business. A further 1,100 employees are working for Archon Group, an asset management unit wholly owned by Goldman Sachs. Archon has offices in the US, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Thailand and Korea.
The Whitehall funds, which are part of the company’s REPIA division, are opportunistic funds that invest in direct property, real estate companies, projects and debt.
