The CFA Society of theUK, supporting ASIP, CFA and IMC professionals.

Goldman’s latest results show that some areas of banking are still going handsomely, even as credit goes to the dogs. Goldmanites working in equity underwriting and prime brokerage look set to do particularly well this year.

Despite a Reuters report that it's laying off 25% of VPs in M&A, it's also notable that Goldman hasn’t made any substantial cuts to staffing overall – it employed 12% more people at the end of Q208 than at the end of Q207. A spokesman for the firm confirmed that it still plans to finish the year with higher headcount than it began with – largely due to staff additions in new markets.

Average comp has fallen, however (maybe due to all those new staff in low cost areas): average accrued compensation per head was $144k for the first half of 2008, down from $174k for the same period of last year.

Here's what was hot and what was not last quarter:

Hot:

• Equity underwriting – ‘significantly higher net revenues’
• Financial advisory (AKA investment banking) – net revenues up 13% on Q207
• Interest rates, commodities and currencies – ‘higher net revenues’
• Asset management – net revenues up 10% on Q207
• Custody and prime brokerage– net revenues in Securities Services up 30% on Q207

Not:

• Debt underwriting – ‘significantly lower net revenues’
• Credit – ‘significantly lower results’
• Pay – compensation and benefits expenditure down 7% on Q207