Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (The)

supported by $31 billion of long-term net inflows, largely from our OCIO business, representing our 26th consecutive quarter of long-term fee-based inflows. Turning to page seven on alternatives. Alternative AUS totaled $314 billion at the end of the second quarter, driving $548 million in management and other fees. Gross third-party fundraising was $22 billion for the quarter, and $36 billion for the first half of the year. In the second quarter, we further reduced our historical principal investment portfolio by $2.2 billion to $12.6 billion. On page nine, firm wide net interest income was $2.2 billion in the quarter, up sequentially from an increase in higher yielding assets and a shift towards non-interest bearing liabilities. Our total loan portfolio at quarter end was $184 billion. flat versus the prior quarter. For the second quarter, our provision for credit losses was $282 million, primarily driven by net charge-offs in our credit card portfolio and partially offset by a release of roughly $115 million related to our wholesale portfolio. Turning to expenses on page 10, total quarterly operating expenses were $8.5 billion. Our year-to-date compensation ratio net of provisions is 33.5%. Quarterly non-compensation expenses were $4.3 billion and included approximately 100 million of CIE impairments. Our effective tax rate for the first half of 2024 was 21.6%. For the full year, we continue to expect a tax rate of approximately 22%. Next, capital on slide 11. In the quarter, we returned $4.4 billion to shareholders. including common stock dividends of $929 million and common stock repurchases of $3.5 billion. Given our higher than expected SCB requirement, we plan to moderate buybacks versus the levels of the second quarter. We will dynamically deploy capital to support our client franchise while targeting a prudent buffer above our new requirement. Our board also approved a 9% increase in our quarterly dividend to $3 per share beginning in the third quarter. a reflection of our priority to pay our shareholders a sustainable growing dividend and our confidence in the increasing durability of our franchise. In conclusion, we generated solid returns for the first half of 2024, which reflects the strength of our interconnected businesses and the ongoing execution of our strategy. We made strong progress in growing our more durable revenue streams, including record first half revenues across FIC and equities financing, management and other fees, and private banking and lending. We remain confident in our ability to drive strong returns for shareholders while continuing to support our clients. With that, we'll now open up the line for questions.

Thank you. Please stand by as we assemble the Q&A roster. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2 on your telephone keypad. If you're asking a question and you are on a hands-free unit or a speakerphone, we would like to ask that you use the handset when asking your question. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. We'll take our first question from Glenn Shore with Evercore.

Hi there. Thanks very much. So I liked your forward-leaning comments on the IBC pipeline, and I think I heard you say the demand for committed acquisition financing is high. Does that infer anything about us being any closer to an inflection point in private equity-related M&A, sponsor-related M&A? And then how much of an advantage do you think you have as being maybe the only big bank that has a full-on private credit platform, obviously DCM platform and lending platform. Thank you.