[Aggie93]

Several years ago they were thought of as being the smartest guys on the street (maybe still the case). I think this reputation allowed them to take advantage of client and GS will see the negative ramifications over time. As someone above pointed out the change from private to public likely played a significant role in this. When the financial crisis hit, GS was one of the few firms (JP Morgan being maybe the only other) that others in the industry felt comfortable having counter-party risk with. Now that the financial system is starting to “normalize” (at least for now), GS will likely start losing market share as other firms are not on the brink of going out of business and can take back business.

I think there are a lot of people in the industry that don’t like dealing with GS, but feel they have to for various reasons. On the equity side, investment firms want the access to their IPO deal flow as one example.