Business View: As Confucius might have said, Goldman shouldn't have too fixed an idea

It is usually only in Victorian novels that the jilted suitor flees to China to become a missionary. But when John Thornton gave up an annual stipend in excess of $10m at Goldman Sachs to become the senior gwei-lo at Beijing's Qinghua University, it was not interpreted as an upward career move in the manner of, say, the decision by former Goldman boss Jon Corzine to run for Congress.

In the piranha pool of global investment banking, the cruel interpretation is that Mr Thornton has chickened out of the battle to become chief executive after Hank Paulson retires. Mind you, anyone who thinks John is chicken simply does not know him.

Like any good corporate financier, Mr Thornton has assessed that his chances of winning this battle were low and has cut his losses. His power base was in mergers and acquisitions and in Europe. In M&A Goldman is still top dog but is doing about a quarter of the business it was three years ago. As for Europe, it is almost a dirty word in the US these days.

The power in the land of Goldman rests with the fixed-interest, foreign exchange and commodity trading sides. Even equities, an area where Goldman has invested billions, is out of favour. Why else would Todd T Christie, the head of Goldman's US market-making business Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, have taken the long walk off a short plank last week?

The Goldman Kremlinologists now see Lloyd Blankfein as the bank's new pin-up boy. The fixed-income and commodity boss has just joined the board and is making a late run for Mr Paulson's post. Here, Goldman is following the money – Mr Blankfein's side is the most profitable – but no one has ever accused the investment bank of being run by communists.

The more damaging accusation could be one of short termism. At the moment, debt is the new equity. With interest rates at near 50-year lows, and equity markets more volatile than Mount Etna, if you want to fund something, you head to the fixed-interest market. However, less than three years ago, the equity markets were bubbling and only two years ago Goldman was masterminding one of the biggest M&A deals in history, Vodafone's purchase of Mannesmann (which was, of course, paid for largely in shares).

Who will be running Goldman when the balance tips back?

Will Murdoch's legacy go to clan?

For years we have been absorbed by the succession battle at News Corporation. Originally it was Elisabeth vs Lachlan vs James, then Elisabeth fell out of the reckoning. But what few have considered is that the real inheritor of the Murdoch legacy may not be a Murdoch at all. It could be John Malone.

The Denver cable king has been building his stake in News Corp for some years – largely without the approval of Rupert. But last week's Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact over DirecTV changes this. Mr Malone agreed not to bid against Mr Murdoch for the satellite TV business, and in exchange he is allowed to buy another 2 per cent of News Corp.

This means that, when Rupert dies, Mr Malone will be by far the dominant shareholder in News Corp. Though the Murdoch family owns 30 per cent of the company, the arrangement for the post-Rupert reconstruction divides the cake among the children. Currently there are five: Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, James and Grace, who is little more than a year old. Wendy Murdoch is now pregnant again, so soon we'll see a sixth claimant.

Though the carve-up is not into six blocks of 5 per cent, no one child ends up with anything like 10 per cent. Will they unify to keep Mr Malone at bay? Or will it be more like King Lear, with the cable king on hand to take away the prize?

Sainsbury's could check out

Sainsbury's poor figures make the painfully slow race for Safeway a little more absorbing. Safeway will produce a trading statement itself shortly, probably on Budget day to try to bury the bad news. If Sir Peter Davis wasn't under enough pressure to give up the fight, this might tempt him. After all, sorting out Sainsbury's appears to be a task that is stretching his talents. Wrestling with two ailing food retailers may be a step too far.

j.nisse@independent.co.uk