What Gary Cohn isn't next CEO of Goldman Sachs?

Cohn, on the right and Blankfein before a speech by 2010 by President Obama in New York City Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

By Max Abelson and Christine Harper

As President and director of Goldman Sachs, Gary D. Cohn should be the obvious candidate to succeed Director Executive Lloyd C. Blankfein. It is not a safe bet, say colleagues a dozen current and previous to that he did not want to be identified. Although Cohn has helped the company to earn billions in profits, their handicap, they say, can be the qualities that got you the No. 2 spot: an abrasive style, an appetite for risk and a long relationship with Blankfein.

Blankfein, 56, has led to Goldman Sachs for five years and said he has no plans to resign. The Bank's actions have fallen 6 percent since he became director-general, while the financial stock index standard & Poor has dropped 52 percent. Through 26 July of this year, the actions are to 18 per cent, while the financial stock index has lost 5 per cent. In the second quarter, profit fell below analysts estimates. The company refused to comment on this story.

Ailing public relations and enthusiasm of the public to find a scapegoat for the worst U.S. economic depression since the great depression in part may explain why Goldman Sachs is struggling to shake their reputation as bad guy. That image and waning faith of investors in the company, has its roots in something more fundamental: Blankfein and dependency Cohn trade and invest the capital of the Bank to reap benefits, even if it means sometimes competing with the customers.

Cohn, 50, has worked with Blankfein since their days at Goldman Sachs commodities trading division, j. Aron. His commercial background gives them an approach to business that differs from the of some former leaders, says Michael C. Aronstein, President of Marketfield Asset Management. John C. Whitehead and Henry Paulson were investment bankers whose focus was on executives to persuade hired Goldman Sachs as an investment in acquisitions or financings banker. "People rushed to Goldman in my early days had a banking background," says Aronstein. "They built this business on the basis of if hired would be part of the team that won." The commodity business is completely different. "You have to guess if you are a client of someone or their prey."

Goldman Sachs "has a problem now," says George j. Collins, former Managing Director of asset manager T. Rowe Price Group. "And I am a client of Goldman Sachs." "There are some questionable things that have been made in this financial crisis." Collins served with Cohn at the Board of the American University in Washington until 2005, when Collins resigned in protest for a multimillion-dollar compensation package - Cohn treatment helped negotiate, President of the College, who left under fire. While Cohn is qualified to lead the Bank, there are other considerations for Board of Goldman Sachs, Collins, said: "if they feel strongly enough has to pause, obviously makes the leap".

At 6 foot 3 and 220 pounds, Cohn may intimidate, according to two former colleagues. Commercial flats of the Goldman Sachs visitor, who would occasionally raise one leg and sole of his foot on the desktop of a merchant, his thigh near the face of the employee and wondered what they were doing the markets, said. Michael Ovitz, who once led a major Hollywood talent agencies, and Daniel Rappaport, former President of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where Cohn served on the Board, both claim to be "abrasive". Ovitz, who says that he has been in contact in email every day with Cohn from lunch with him in 2009, sees the tenacity as "positive". An Executive cannot be "all peaches-and-cream", she adds.

Cohn, who did not want to be interviewed, grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the son of an electrician-turned-promoter. He earned a Bachelor's degree from American University: Kogod School of Business in 1982. Then, on a day off work sale of aluminium cladding and Windows frameworks, spent a few hours in the Comex commodity exchange. Cadged a trip to the airport with a merchant, with a keynote address he gave at the American University in 2009. The man said that he needed help commercial options. "I'm your guy," said Cohn. In preparation for the interview, spent a weekend reading options Lawrence g. McMillan as a strategic investment four times. He got the job.

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