Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is back. As reported by the Dow Jones wire service Monday 27 September 2010, Goldman Sachs has retained its coveted position at the top of the league table of M&A advisers by both revenue and number of deals globally, and for the U.S. and Europe, during the first nine months of 2010, figures from Dealogic show Monday. Goldman's dominance in the coveted list--only twice broken in the past ten years--is unchanged compared with a year ago on a global basis for the first nine months of the year, reinforcing the idea that the investment bank continues to see little fallout from the negative publicity it has garnered this year.

On a global basis, Goldman advised on 225 deals, with a total value of $401.6 billion, Dealogic figures show, giving them a market share of just over 20%. Goldman generated $961 million in revenue from its global M&A advisory. It also topped the rankings according both to deal value and advisory revenue in the U.S. In Europe, although it took the top position measured by deal value, it fell to fifth position according to advisory fee revenue, beaten by Morgan Stanley (MS), Rothschild, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank AG (DB). In Asia Pacific excluding Japan, however, Bank of America Merrill Lynch topped the M&A ranking, according to value of deals, with a nearly 20% market share. UBS A.G. (UBS) topped the Asia Pacific ranking measured according to the M&A fees ranking, Dealogic says. For Japan, Nomura (9716.TO) dominated the rankings over the same period for both criteria.

The reputation metrics indicate that Goldman Sachs has retained its position at a cost. The Steel City Re Corporate Reputation Index™ ranking for the Company has dropped a net 9 percentile points over the trailing twelve months from the 98th percentile to the 89th percentile as shown in the top chart. Concurrently, the reputation rankings for the entire industry improved, as shown in the 4th chart, with little change in the inter-sector variance. Goldman Sachs' return on equity, in the top chart, and its fractional intangible asset value, shown in the last chart, reveal under performance by 19% and a persistent material loss of intangible asset fractional value.

When we last looked at the Company's metrics, we speculated that the equity markets were not appreciating the Company's value. With the benefit of hindsight, we see that the markets were underpricing the Company relative to its reputation ranking, but were nevertheless sensing real expected loss. A loss of pricing power. We interpret these metrics, in the aggregate, to suggest that Goldman Sachs has had to yield a bit on price. We believe customers want Goldman Sachs for their intellectual prowesss, but sense that they can squeeze Goldman on price. A bit, anyway. For now.  And so it goes.