Goldman Sachs Finalizes $2 Billion Purchase of ETF Firm Innovator

Goldman Sachs has closed its acquisition of exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm Innovator Capital Management.

The $2 billion deal, announced Thursday (April 2), is designed to enhance Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s offerings in what it calls the field of defined outcome ETFs.

“With this acquisition, we have taken a transformative step in our commitment to provide sophisticated investment solutions that are designed to deliver specific outcomes for investors through market cycles,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in a news release.

“Integrating Innovator’s specialized defined outcome ETF capabilities expands our range of strategies that can be accessible for a broad range of investors, while enhancing our leadership in the active ETF category.”

As covered here when the bank announced the acquisition plans last year, defined outcome ETFs use derivatives and options-based strategies to offer objectives like principal downside protection, yield enhancement, and defined outcomes if invested for the full outcome period.

This lets investors “build and customize portfolios through the tax-efficient ETF wrapper,” as Goldman said.

This deal will integrate Innovator’s roughly $31 billion in assets under supervision (AUS) across its suite of 171 ETFs focused on defined outcome strategies, meaning that Goldman Sachs Asset Management now manages around 240 ETFs worldwide. With $90 billion in ETF assets under supervision, Goldman Sachs Asset Management is among the top ten global active ETF providers in the world.

Innovator’s 70-plus employees will now join Goldman, with its various top executives becoming advisory directors and partners at the bank.

In other Goldman Sachs News, the bank has been of late deploying autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents built using Anthropic’s Claude model to automate its core accounting, compliance and operational finance functions.

“The initiative reflects the rapid adoption of agentic AI and the broader trends in corporate finance where CFOs and firms are experimenting with productivity-boosting platforms while managing risk and control,” PYMNTS wrote in February.

Goldman Sachs Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti told CNBC that the bank has spent six months embedding Anthropic engineers within its tech teams to collaborate on AI agents that can carry out complex, rule-based tasks beyond simple coding or drafting.

The company’s embrace of agentic AI comes amid a larger push toward automation in the finance industry. Solomon has previously spotlighted generative AI as central to a multiyear strategy to control growth in headcount and accelerate in-house workflows.