Importantly, though, the issue transcends Goldman Sachs, with significant implications for any blue-chip financial or professional service firm.

FORBES: Revenge of the Muppets

The company bought businesses such as Hugo Boss, originally a German menswear firm, and signed deals with blue-chip Italian designers such as Gianfranco Ferre.

ECONOMIST: The changing fabric of Italian fashion | The

In the six years since its founding his Manhattan firm has built out a client list full of blue-chip accounts like Kraft, Prudential, Microsoft, Unilever and Puma.

FORBES: Perfect Pitch: How Droga5 Is Making Ads You Can't Ignore

The idea of a blue chip firm issuing at 1 percent, as IBM did for its three-year notes last summer, is now obsolete when inflation over the last three months exceeds 5 percent on an annualized basis.

FORBES: Debt-Free Firms Have The Edge With Rates Going Up

Infosys, a technology firm, leapt in a generation from a start-up to a global blue chip, owned by institutional shareholders and measured against that most Western of yardsticks, the stock price.

ECONOMIST: Business in India

Software firm Autonomy and logistics group Exel are to drop out of the FTSE-100 following the blue-chip index's quarterly reshuffle.

BBC: Autonomy to drop out of FTSE 100