Goldman Sachs sought to charm corporate India on Thursday by holding its first annual board meeting in the country, against a backdrop of slow business, a cooling economy and tough regulation. Still smarting from a series of knocks to its reputation, the Wall Street firm's board members spent Thursday closeted on an upper floor of Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace hotel, which was heavily damaged during a 2008 militant attack on the financial capital.
Goldman showed the adverse publicity has not weakened its pulling power, as the board used the event to host a lunch meeting for prominent Indian business leaders. Industrialists including Mukesh Ambani, Asia's second-richest man, according to Forbes, and chairman of Reliance Industries; and Ratan Tata, head of India's biggest business house, the Tata group, which also owns the Taj hotel chain, were also due to meet the executives, sources said. Both companies, as well as Goldman, declined to comment.