Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is scrapping a pledge it made to refuse initial public offering(IPO) business from companies that had fully white, male boards, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The major investment bank had implemented a policy in 2020 that required it to only take a company public in the U.S. or Western Europe if it had two diverse board members, one of which must be a woman, Bloomberg reported. Goldman Sachs deciding to abandon the diversity pledge comes amid reports of conservative activists calling for several Wall Street giants to revoke policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
David Solomon became the CEO of Goldman Sachs in 2018, and prioritized DEI initiatives during his first year in the position, Bloomberg reported. Gregg Lemkau, who was the head of investment-banking at Goldman Sachs at the time, proposed a diversity threshold for IPOs at the end…