“After flying into São Paulo last month, the president of Goldman Sachs declared that his company and JPMorgan Chase were the last two investment bank giants standing.

“’You are seeing big international banks, outside of ourselves and JPMorgan, really taking a pretty substantial step back from the markets, and we have not seen that in the entire history of banking,’ the Goldman executive, Gary D. Cohn, said in a news conference at the company’s new offices in the city’s sleek Infinity tower.

“Since the financial crisis, Goldman has largely defied critics who predicted the death of its business model. Those calls were hardly surprising. Goldman and its competitors are operating with less borrowed money, which has drastically reduced profitability, and the billions that Goldman made packaging and selling securities from mortgages has all but disappeared. New regulations aimed at curbing the risk-taking that led to the financial crisis have further eaten into profit.

“The company has also suffered a number of blows to its reputation, including accusations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it defrauded its clients.”

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