Goldman Sachs, the bank with the biggest trading profits on Wall Street, is losing market share underwriting corporate bonds as it seeks to boost its image as a company adviser rather than a $900bn hedge fund, says Bloomberg. The most profitable firm in Wall Street history has slipped to 10th in helping the world’s companies raise debt, down from ninth last year and as high as third place in 2003, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its share of this year’s $1.9trn in global offerings dipped to 3.7%, from an average 4.8% in the previous 10 years. Chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein is working to restore the New York-based firm’s reputation as an advocate for its customers after agreeing last month to pay a record fine to settle US allegations it misled clients over sales of a mortgage-linked security

Basis Capital, an Australian hedge fund, urged a New York judge to allow its $1bn lawsuit over the marketing of credit default swaps by Goldman Sachs. to proceed, calling Goldman’s request for a dismissal a “distraction”, according to Bloomberg. The lawsuit by Basis Capital’s Basis Yield Alpha Fund focuses on Goldman Sachs’s sale of the “Timberwolf” collateralised debt obligation. The complaint, filed 9 June  in Manhattan federal court, says the fund was forced into insolvency after buying mortgage-linked securities created by Goldman Sachs, in what one of its own executives described internally as a “shi**y deal”. Goldman Sachs, based in New York, urged District Judge Barbara Jones to throw out the suit in an 2 August filing, citing a June US Supreme Court ruling that said US securities laws don’t apply to the claims of foreign buyers of non-US securities on foreign exchanges.

A group of credit traders has launched an appeal to raise money for victims of the floods that have devastated Pakistan since heavy monsoon rains began in July, reports Financial News. The team is led by Iftikhar Ali, a hedge fund manager at the London arm of Millennium Management, who was born only a few miles from the floods. The team has set its sights on raising £100,000 ($154,417) and has already achieved more than three quarters of its target. “Given all the bad press surrounding the financial crisis and bankers' bonuses this is a great advert for the City community and shows it giving something back,” said Ali. He will travel to Pakistan at the beginning of October with Ivor O’Toole from Tullett Prebon, Abid Hussain from Citigroup and Nomura's Shazad Amir. They will distribute food and supplies to the victims, and help build shelters.

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Hedge fund firm Man Group has hired former FRM executive Luke Ellis to head its fund of funds business, continuing the unit's overhaul since it lost $360m investing with US fraudster Bernard Madoff, reports Reuters. Ellis, who was managing director of fund of hedge funds firm Financial Risk Management (FRM) until 2008, will replace Herbert Item as head of Man Group's $14.2bn multi-manager business, Man said in a statement. Man formed the business last year through the merger of Swiss-based RMF – the unit headed by Item that invested in Madoff's Ponzi scheme – with Glenwood, another fund of funds business. Ellis currently works for GLG – the fund manager Man is in the process of buying – as non-executive chairman of its multi-manager business and manager of its Multi Strategy fund.

BNP Paribas said on Tuesday it has hired Mads Hultgreen to build upon the growth of the bank's commodities business worldwide and support its strong commitment to hedge fund clients, reports Reuters. Hultgreen was appointed to the newly created role of head of commodity derivatives European hedge fund sales and joined BNP Paribas on 9 August. He will be based in London and report directly to Jose Cogolludo, global head of sales and marketing for commodity derivatives, BNP said in a release, and will oversee commodity derivatives' European hedge fund sales team and will act as co-head of the commodities hedge fund business globally with Caroline Abramo.