Goldman Sachs warns of Q3 earnings hit due to GreenSky sale

Goldman Sachs (GS) shares are down ahead of Wednesday's closing bell as the company warns of a hit to third-quarter earnings due to its sale of fintech platform GreenSky.

Yahoo Finance's Josh Lipton and Julie Hyman discuss the news. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Video transcript

- Shares of Goldman Sachs right now. The bank warning of a hit to third quarter earnings as a result of the sale of GreenSky. It's a fintech platform. It comes ahead of Goldman's earnings report next week. So specifically, Julie, it's going to result in a $0.19 per share impact to third quarter earnings. You listen to CEO David Solomon. We know there's been this shift in how he's thinking about consumer finance. The key line here to me was, from Solomon, "This transaction demonstrates our continued progress in narrowing the focus of our consumer business." So getting back here to their bread and butter, its trading, its i-banking, its wealth management.

JULIE HYMAN: Right. Really interesting here. And this was a very quick turnaround for GreenSky, by the way. The company agreed to buy it in 2021 for $2 and 1/4 billion. Then by the time it had completed the transaction last year, that fall-- that price had fallen to $1.7 billion. So they already had taken like a $500 million writedown on the value of this asset. And they said they were selling it. So it's not a shock that they're selling it here.

And by the way, Sixth Street Partners is buying it-- or a consortium led by Sixth Street Partners is buying it. So it's going private. But it's just interesting the speed with which Solomon is making some changes at the firm. And of course, the background that we should note is that Solomon has been under pressure from some investors over his leadership of the firm and morale inside Goldman Sachs.

- Yeah, investors. But also, some of the reports you're hearing about Solomon are rough. I don't know if that's a campaign or being leaked by unhappy partners, but it's been rough read.

JULIE HYMAN: Yes.