Goldman Sachs Leads Rivals in Third-Quarter Share Sale Revenue

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. topped its four biggest US equity underwriting rivals in the third quarter, with only Morgan Stanley reporting a decline in fees compared to last year.

Boosted by stock sales from companies tapping into the artificial intelligence spending boom, Goldman Sachs’ equity capital markets revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totaled $666 million, according to a statement, up 43% from the same period a year earlier.

In contrast, Morgan Stanley’s equity underwriting fees fell 19% year-over-year, driven lower by IPOs and block trades, its earnings statement showed. Unlike its top Wall Street rivals, the bank missed out on a role in the $26.5 billion US listing of South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix Inc., the biggest-ever debut on an American exchange by a foreign company.

Companies selling stock mostly shrugged off the pressure that higher interest rates and volatility in AI-related stocks put on valuations. Though some candidates delayed their IPO plans, many benefited from the fervor surrounding the technology, bolstering the bottom lines of equity underwriters.

“There are obviously a handful of IPOs that didn’t move forward, but when you look at ECM revenues for the quarter and the last few quarters, they’re running meaningfully above both five-year and 10-year averages,” David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’ chief executive officer, said during Tuesday’s earnings call with analysts.

The lender’s biggest deals in the September quarter included SK Hynix, Intel Corp.’s $23 billion stock sale and large convertible bond sales for AI cloud computing firms CoreWeave Inc. and Nebius Group NV. Goldman Sachs’ take would have been higher still if the IPO for Oura Inc., which it had been leading, had gone ahead.

Technology innovation and AI infrastructure activity provide “real good ballast” for future capital markets activity, Solomon said.

The five banks’ combined fees climbed 13% versus the corresponding period last year to $2.5 billion, producing their second-best ECM quarter since 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Still, the total was nearly a third below the $3.6 billion haul in a frenetic June quarter when the record-setting $86.2 billion SpaceX IPO drove $500 million of underwriting fees.

Morgan Stanley is expected to take a lead role on a potential record-breaking IPO of Claude developer Anthropic PBC as soon as next month, Bloomberg has reported. The bank’s wealth management operation is separately benefiting from fund flows stemming from its work on recent IPOs.

AI remains a huge driver of activity, according to bankers, despite recent volatility in assets viewed as part of the investment theme.

Even with AI infrastructure spending running at $1 trillion a year, the cycle still has many years to run, Ted Pick, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive officer, said on an analyst call Wednesday.

“Sometimes the technology will be ahead of what the market will accept, and sometimes vice-versa, and we have to be cognizant of what the market will accept at a given time,” Pick said.

Citigroup Inc. showed the biggest improvement from last year. Its equity capital markets revenue jumped 77% to $343 million compared to the same quarter in 2025, data compiled by Bloomberg show, helped by its leading role on the SK Hynix deal.

Jane Fraser, Citigroup’s chief executive officer, sounded a bullish note on an analyst call Tuesday, citing robust US activity and engagement with sponsors.

“It’s a solid pipeline to say the least,” Fraser said. “As long as macro is stable, we don’t see that changing.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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