Seven things you didn’t know about the Goldman-Greece swap

29 July 2016Articlesderivatives, Goldman Sachs, GreeceNick Dunbar

15 years after it was signed, the Goldman-Greece swap continues to be a reputational problem for the bank. A longer feature that reviews a decade’s worth of unreported material on the story.

Goldman and Greece revisited

12 March 2012Articles, Banksderivatives, eurozone, Goldman Sachs, Greece, sovereign debtNick Dunbar

Most journalism is a hit-and-run affair. We talk to sources, check facts, agree quotes, wrestle with editors and lawyers; the excitement builds up to the point the story appears...and then we drop the whole thing and move on. When I published my story on Goldman Sachs and Greece in July 2003, the almost-universal reaction was:…

Goldman, Greece and a troubling tango

1 March 2010Articles, Comment, Risky Financeeurozone, Goldman Sachs, Greece, Risky FinanceNick Dunbar

Risky Finance 18 February 2010 Six-and-a-half years ago, Goldman Sachs found itself reading about a huge derivatives transaction that was meant to have been kept top secret. The story, which I published in Risk magazine in July 2003, detailed how the bank had used giant customised swap transactions to help Greece's public debt management agency…

The mystique of structured products

12 February 2009Articles, Comment, Risky FinanceFSA, Greece, JP Morgan, pension funds, Risky FinanceNick Dunbar

Risky Finance 17 May 2007 The session of the Greek parliament on 3rd May was an especially stormy one. A few days earlier, the minister for employment had been forced to resign, and the socialist opposition smelled blood. Why, clamoured the socialist MPs, had the finance ministry hired JP Morgan to package loans linked to…