(Bloomberg) —
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will invest as much as $1 billion in T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and team up with the asset manager to sell private-market products to retail investors.
The unusual arrangement means Goldman will use its balance sheet to hold equity in T. Rowe, whose stock has tumbled more than 50% from its 2021 peak. The companies will collaborate on a range of investments for retirement savers and wealthy investors, they said in an emailed statement.
Goldman will make “a series of open-market purchases” to amass up to 3.5% of T. Rowe’s stock, potentially making the Wall Street bank one of its five biggest shareholders, according to the statement. It will be Goldman’s only investment in an outside asset management firm.
The tie-up is the latest sign that the biggest financial firms are competing hard to win over wealthy Americans and those with 401(k) plans on the merits of private equity, credit and infrastructure strategies.
The equity investment “was important to our leadership team and our board because I do think it signals a long-term commitment and creates alignment,” T. Rowe Chief Executive Officer Rob Sharps said in an interview.
Shares of T. Rowe jumped 4.6% at 7:08 a.m. in early New York trading after Bloomberg News reported the agreement.
The partnership comes at a critical juncture for the asset management industry, with traditional players pushing into alternative assets that have been dominated for years by the leading private equity firms. They’re searching for new revenue sources, while the private-markets leaders want to lean on the sales teams and relationships of the traditional firms to attract retail investors while institutional fundraising has slowed.
T. Rowe has been in a rut since 2022, when stock and bond markets plunged, slamming performance and prompting clients to pull billions of dollars from the firm’s stock and bond funds. Investors have continued to shift money to low-cost index funds and ETFs, leaving T. Rowe exposed because of its primary focus on actively managed public investments.
Marc Nachmann, Goldman’s head of asset and wealth management, indicated he wasn’t concerned by heavy outflows — more than $200 billion — from T. Rowe’s funds over the past five years.
“It’s an unusually broad partnership that we’re agreeing to,” Nachmann said in an interview. “T. Rowe continues to be viewed as one of the best names in the business.”
The new Goldman partnership is helping T. Rowe forge ahead in an increasingly crowded market, with money managers collectively splashing out tens of billions of dollars on deals or entering partnerships to avoid being left behind from the latest boom in alternative assets.
Blackstone Inc., Vanguard Group and Wellington Management have struck up their own partnership, while Apollo Global Management Inc. and State Street Corp. have launched products. Capital Group and KKR & Co. have teamed up, while BlackRock Inc. spent about $25 billion in deals to become a leading private credit and infrastructure investor.
Read More: Larry Fink Is Capitalizing on a Seismic Shift in Private Markets
Still, the new efforts are in their early days and the firms are pushing to sell financial advisers, retirement plan sponsors and investors on the potentially higher returns — and higher fees — of private assets. About two-thirds of T. Rowe’s assets are in retirement funds, making it one of the largest firms in that part of the market.
“The broader your capabilities, the more options you have to create custom tailored solutions,” Sharps said in the interview.
Earlier this year, he said that T. Rowe was expanding further into private assets following its 2021 acquisition of credit manager Oak Hill Advisors.
The firms plan to offer co-branded retirement funds in the middle of 2026 that have investments from Oak Hill and private-markets strategies from Goldman. They’ll also have joint portfolios for high-net-worth individuals — as well as those who are less wealthy — and are planning to start two new strategies: one that includes private equity, credit and infrastructure, and a second that combines public and private equity.
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
#Goldman #Buy #Rowe #Stock #Firms #Team