Goldman loses another bet, an Olympic one.

The investment bank Goldman Sachs will financially support the city of Fukuoka's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the Financial Times reported Saturday.

The report said Goldman Sachs is now advising Fukuoka on the commercial viability of hosting the Games and is prepared to help pay for the southwestern Japanese city's infrastructure development.

"Based on our analysis, we are prepared to commit capital to this project," Masanori Mochida, president of Goldman Sachs Japan, was quoted as telling the paper.

"This project will have very sizeable returns, so Goldman Sachs is confident we can get interest from real estate investors, institutional investors and real estate investment funds," he said.

The report came a day after the Japanese Olympic Committee made public a report believed to work in favor of Tokyo over Fukuoka in the bidding race between the two domestic candidates for the 2016 Games.

We can’t win them all, can we? Not even the mighty Goldman.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060826/kyodo/d8jo6b1g0.html