City profiles
David Solomon The new boss of Goldman Sachs has been charged with taming “the Vampire Squid” as the company “tries to persuade ordinary people to put their savings” into Marcus, its new retail banking concept, says Oliver Shah in The Sunday Times. David Solomon certainly makes a change from the long line of workobsessive “rough-and-tough traders” who’ve traditionally dominated “the most redtoothed investment bank in the world”. He made his career as an investment banker on the back of close relationships with clients such as Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino. Known as “DJ D-sol at weekends”, Solomon, 56, spins dance music and practises yoga, noting recently that if he didn’t find time to “pursue passions”, it would be harder “to keep moving forward professionally”. More than 70% of Royal Mail investors stamped “return to sender” on the pay deal of the company’s new boss, Rico Back, last week, says The Observer. The Hamburgborn businessman, 63, who previously headed Royal Mail’s European subsidiary, GLS, has been offered up to £2.7m annually if he hits bonus targets, on top of a controversial £6m payment for changing his contract. That, as the Daily Mail notes, will anger postal workers on average £28,274 salaries, who’ve “accepted changes to their pensions to help save the company money”. Back lives in a £2.3m penthouse near Zurich, preferring to commute to his job from there rather than relocate to Britain. He has been dubbed “the flying postman” – but can he cope with the flak?