(Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. confirmed to staff its first two cases of the coronavirus as the Wall Street bank steps up plans to split up teams and allow more employees to work from home.
In a memo seen by Bloomberg News, Goldman Sachs told staff it received confirmation that an employee from its London office who was off sick with suspected coronavirus tested positive and was at home in isolation. The bank told employees that the staff member at its European headquarters in Plumtree Court offices in central London was off since March 9.
The London case followed an earlier memo to staff in Goldman Sachs’s office in Sydney that an employee working in its Governor Phillip Tower site had a confirmed case of coronavirus.
Earlier this month, a gym worker in the Goldman Sachs New Jersey office was quarantined after coming down with a suspected case of coronavirus.
Those who had close contact with the two individuals have been notified and have been told to self-isolate. In the case of the Australian employee, Goldman Sachs said it determined that the worker had been at one outside meeting and had contacted the organization where the meeting took place.
Goldman Sachs informed public health authorities in the U.K. and Australia of the cases and told staff that specialist teams have been brought in to clean its offices.
Before the cases were confirmed, the bank was already moving to split its workforce in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa to reduce the chances of whole teams becoming infected at the same time. In an internal memo Thursday, Goldman Sachs said two teams dubbed blue and white, the bank’s corporate colors, would start taking turns alternating between home and office.
A spokesman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
