NEOS Investments Set for $2.25B Acquisition by Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs Asset Management will expand its portfolio with NEOS' $30 billion in ETF assets, featuring cryptocurrency-focused income funds tied to Bitcoin and Ether.
In a move to expand its exchange-traded fund operations, Goldman Sachs has reached an agreement to purchase NEOS Investments for a sum reaching up to $2.25 billion, bringing the firm's cryptocurrency-linked Bitcoin and Ether funds into its expanding ETF portfolio.
The investment firm NEOS oversees $30 billion in assets distributed across 19 exchange-traded funds utilizing options-based income strategies, which include the Bitcoin High Income ETF (BTCI), Boosted Bitcoin High Income ETF (XBCI) and Ethereum High Income ETF (NEHI). These cryptocurrency-focused funds employ options-based methodologies engineered to produce monthly income distributions while providing exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH).
With regulatory approval pending, the transaction is anticipated to reach completion during the first quarter of 2027, at which point NEOS co-founders Troy Cates and Garrett Paolella, along with the company's entire team, will transition to Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
According to Goldman, this purchase, combined with its earlier acquisition of Innovator Capital Management, is projected to elevate its worldwide ETF platform to approximately $130 billion in managed assets and position the institution as the eighth-largest manager of active ETFs.
Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, characterized the acquisition as a "semi-shock," highlighting NEOS' impressive growth trajectory since the company's establishment in 2022 and Goldman's consecutive acquisitions of both NEOS and Innovator.
This acquisition follows Goldman's decision to scale back its own disclosed cryptocurrency ETF exposure during the first quarter, divesting from XRP- and Solana-linked funds while reducing its stakes in Bitcoin and Ether ETFs. Despite these reductions, the banking institution still maintained more than $700 million in Bitcoin ETF holdings at the conclusion of the quarter.