‘Friend’lier Headlines for Goldman With Facebook Investment?

Goldman Sachs‘ $450 million investment in Facebook may be just what both companies need. Goldman didn’t exactly emerge popular from the financial crisis, and for all its fans, Facebook “ranked last among e-business in customer satisfaction last year,” a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch story says.

Business Insider says “Goldman’s reputation is enhanced as it’s seen as Facebook’s banker.” That’s a nice switch for the firm from the Reuters blog headline that called its reputation “in tatters” back in April.

And the move both bodes well for Facebook as a growth company and pushes chatter about the company as an IPO candidate to the forefront, the article suggests.

Still, a CBS BNET post notes that the deal has “raised a lot of eyebrows” especially because of an investment vehicle a WSJ story points out “will allow some of the securities firm’s richest clients to buy as much as $1.5 billion of equity in Facebook.”

That means more conversation about the relationship between public and private companies on the SEC’s front, Forbes reports.

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