Goldman Sachs Drops $2 Billion on ETF Upstart to Beef Up Its Money Machine

CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times contributed to this report.

Goldman Sachs is writing a $2 billion check to buy Innovator Capital Management, a fast-growing player in the niche world of “defined-outcome” exchange-traded funds, as the Wall Street giant continues to bulk up its asset management business and move further away from its short-lived consumer banking experiment.

The all-cash-and-stock deal, announced Monday, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approvals. When it does, Innovator’s roughly $28 billion in assets across 159 ETFs (as of Sept. 30) will come under the Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) umbrella.

Innovator specializes in defined-outcome ETFs — funds that use options and other derivatives to give investors a preset range of outcomes over a set period.

Think of it like this:

• You can buffer some of the downside if markets fall…
• …but in exchange, your upside is capped if markets rip higher.

These “buffer” or structured-outcome ETFs have become popular with financial advisors who want to dial down risk for clients without fully abandoning the stock market. It’s a corner of the ETF world that’s been growing fast, and Goldman clearly wants in with a bigger footprint.

“Active ETFs are dynamic, transformative, and one of the fastest-growing segments in today’s public investment landscape,” Goldman CEO David Solomon said in a statement. “By acquiring Innovator, Goldman Sachs will expand access to modern, world-class investment products.”

Goldman has made it pretty clear over the past couple of years that asset and wealth management is its new core growth engine. After its consumer banking push (remember Marcus?) fizzled, the firm pivoted hard back toward fee-based businesses that generate steadier revenue than trading and dealmaking.

Recent moves include:

• A $1 billion investment in T. Rowe Price in September.
• The acquisition of Industry Ventures, a venture capital investor, announced in October.

Now, with Innovator:

• Goldman immediately boosts its ETF lineup and joins the top tier of active ETF issuers.
• Innovator’s 60-plus employees, including co-founder and CEO Bruce Bond and other key executives, will join Goldman’s asset management, third-party wealth, and ETF teams.

Combined, Goldman’s asset management division and Innovator will oversee more than 215 ETF strategies globally, with around $75 billion in ETF assets under supervision.

For years, ETFs were mostly associated with low-cost index funds. Now, active and structured strategies are stealing more of the spotlight.

Goldman cited Morningstar data showing that:

• Actively managed ETFs globally have grown to about $1.6 trillion,
• …with a compound annual growth rate of roughly 47% since 2020.

Other big names are making similar moves. J.P. Morgan Asset Management, for example, rolled out its largest active ETF earlier this year with a $2 billion anchor commitment from an external client.

Goldman itself has already dipped its toe into “buffer” ETFs, but with only modest success so far. Its own structured-outcome products have gathered relatively small assets compared with Innovator’s lineup. Buying the platform — and its relationships with advisors — is a much faster way to scale.

The Innovator deal fits the pattern of Goldman’s recent strategy:

• Smaller, bolt-on acquisitions that strengthen specific capabilities (like private markets, alternatives, or ETFs),
• Rather than giant, transformative deals like rival Morgan Stanley’s acquisitions of E*Trade and Eaton Vance.

Goldman’s asset and wealth management arm already oversees around $3.5 trillion as of the end of September. Adding Innovator’s fast-growing ETF franchise is meant to keep that flywheel spinning — and diversify Goldman more deeply into steady, fee-based revenue tied to long-term client assets.

Or as Innovator CEO Bruce Bond put it, this is “a pivotal milestone” for his firm — and one more sign that the old-school Wall Street powerhouses now see ETFs, even complex ones, as a central battleground for future growth.