[VolatileVoid]

I love how people jump on the anti-GS train because it's the hip, popular thing to do. No doubt, GS has done things wrong. But:

  1) They were not the SOLE underwriter of GroupOn, nor were they the largest (that was Morgan Stanley).
  2) They were co-leads with Morgan and Credit Suisse.
  3) They made $8mm in fees on the deal.

To put it into perspective, GS's Q1 2012 revenue was $9.95bn. Let's compare for perspective:

  9,950,000,000
  8,000,000

Obviously GS also profited from the fact that they could buy GroupOn on the cheap, at pre-IPO prices, but even then I hardly think it would have made a dent in their bottom line.

So if you're going to criticize, add Morgan and Credit Suisse to your list. And JPMC wasn't even a lead underwriter on GroupOn. And even then, if you're going to implicate people, you might as well add the other 11 underwriters.

And in fact, you might as well add GroupOn's early investors who standed to make a KILLING on the inflated IPO price.

It's dollars all the way down, sir - and it doesn't start or stop just at Goldman Sachs.