Partners Muneer Satter, Gerald Cardinale and Hughes Lepic resigned after serving more than 20 years each at Goldman, but were not pushed out of the firm, the paper quoted people familiar with the matter as saying.

The Wall Street Journal said the bank disclosed the departures and some promotions in four internal memos signed by Richard Friedman, head of the merchant banking unit and a member of Goldman's managing committee.

Lepic, who is head of the division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, plans to leave at the end of August and will be succeeded by Andrew Wolff, the paper reported.

The WSJ report said the other appointments include Henry Cornell, who was named vice chairman of the merchant banking division and Tom Connolly, who will become sole head of the corporate credit business.

Goldman Sachs could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Aman Shah in Bangalore; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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