Goldman Sachs, T. Rowe Price Announce Collaboration to Expand Access to Private Markets

Goldman Sachs and T. Rowe Price announced a major strategic collaboration aimed at providing a new suite of diversified public and private market solutions for retirement and wealth investors. The partnership will focus on bringing private market access to a broader audience, including financial advisers, plan sponsors, and individual retirement savers.

As a show of commitment to the new partnership, Goldman Sachs stated its intention to purchase up to $1 billion of T. Rowe Price common stock through open-market transactions, with the goal of owning up to a 3.5% stake in the company.

According to third-party reporting, the pairing may enhance performance for T. Rowe Price, which has struggled in recent years with its stock falling more than 50% since 2021.

“This investment and collaboration represent our conviction in a shared legacy of success delivering results for investors,” said David Solomon, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs. “With Goldman Sachs’ decades of leadership innovating across public and private markets and T. Rowe Price’s expertise in active investing, clients can invest confidently in the new opportunities for retirement savings and wealth creation.”

This is yet another recent example of traditional players seeking new revenue streams within alternative investments. Previously reported by AltsWire, BlackRock has spent just under $30 billion this year purchasing firms that enhance its enhance its presence in private markets. In addition, Wells Fargo’s Wealth & Investment Management division, in collaboration with InvestCloud, now offers alts as an eligible investment in its personalized unified managed account program – one of the first large wirehouses to make this option available at scale.

In addition, AltsWire pointed to a summer survey from Empower, the second-largest retirement services provider in the nation by total participants, which uncovered significant adviser interest in bringing private market investments into defined contribution portfolios.

The Goldman Sachs-T. Rowe Price collaboration is built on several key initiatives:

• Target-date strategies: The firms are planning new, co-branded target-date strategies that leverage T. Rowe Price’s expertise in the retirement blend series while broadening plan participants’ access to private markets by incorporating investment capabilities from Goldman Sachs, T. Rowe Price and OHA. Goldman Sachs will serve as third-party provider of private market strategies for the target-date series. The firms intend to launch the solutions in mid-2026.
• Model portfolios: A series of jointly created, co-branded model portfolios will be introduced, leveraging the strengths of both firms to serve mass-affluent and high-net-worth clients. These portfolios will include a variety of investment vehicles, from separately managed accounts and direct indexing to mutual funds and private market offerings.
• Multi-asset offerings: The firms are also collaborating on new multi-asset offerings. The firms are currently considering two strategies – one that will provide access to asset classes such as private equity, private credit and private infrastructure in a diversified portfolio delivered through one vehicle, and another that integrates U.S. public and private equity investing into a single offering.
• Personalized advice and managed accounts: The partnership will also focus on developing a new advisory platform for financial advisers and registered investment advisers. This platform aims to provide scalable managed retirement accounts both within and outside of retirement plans, integrating planning and advice into T. Rowe Price’s existing recordkeeping services.

Rob Sharps, CEO and president of T. Rowe Price, stated that the collaboration will “unlock the potential of private capital as part of their retirement and wealth management strategies.”

Glenn August, founder and CEO of OHA, added that this partnership is a significant milestone that will “deliver a wider range of investment strategies, focusing on accelerating innovation and creating new products to serve client needs.”

Click here to visit the AltsWire directory page.