When Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt supported the sale of shares in a state-owned company to Goldman Sachs, she couldn't have known how costly the deal would turn out to be. On Jan 30, as a parliamentary committee gave final approval for the bank's purchase of 18% of Dong Energy, the nation's largest electric utility, for $1.5 billion, the Socialist People's Party quit the governing coalition in protest, leading six cabinet ministers to resign. The role of Goldman in the deal struck a nerve with the Danish public, which is still suffering from the aftereffects of the global financial crisis. Denmark became Scandinavia's weakest economy after a housing bubble burst in 2008, triggering a crisis at community banks, which had lent heavily to property developers.