Goldman Sachs is no stranger to investing in other asset managers, but now the giant investment bank is making its biggest ever fund firm bet while teaming up with a target-date fund titan.

Last week, David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman, and Rob Sharps, CEO and president (also chair) of T. Rowe Price [profile], unveiled a new partnership between the two publicly traded firms. The "strategic collaboration" that will involve joint work on new investment offerings and a potentially 10-figure investment by Goldman.

The Goldman team reveals that they plan to buy up to $1 billion in T. Rowe stock (TROW), to own a stake of up to 3.5 percent. Based on the most recent public data on T. Rowe big institutional shareholders (mostly mutual funds and ETFs), Goldman's planned purchases would make it T. Rowe's single biggest institutional shareholder.

"We invest in outside managers' products through our external investment group (XIG)," a Goldman spokesperson tells MFWire via email. "But this is the first partnership at this scale."

Sharps, in an interview with Barron's, insists that the Goldman partnership is not a prelude to T. Rowe being acquired by Goldman.

Beyond Goldman taking a big stake in T. Rowe, the two firms' new partnership will involve them teaming up to launch new TDFs next year, powered in part by private market strategies curated by Goldman (which has its own, $3.3-trillion-AUS* asset management arm, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, aka GSAM [profile]) and by alternative credit strategies from T. Rowe's OHA. They'll also build co-brand model portfolios and multi-asset offerings, and they'll partner on retirement advisor managed accounts (AMAs) for use both inside and outside of DC plans.

"We could start rolling them out end of this year/early next year," a Goldman spokesperson says of the planned Goldman-T. Rowe model portfolios. Those portfolios will be geared towards both high-net-worth and mass-affluent investors, and the portfolios will incorporate a variety of different investment vehicle types, including dirext indexing and other SMAs, ETFs, mutual funds, and "private market vehicles."

Sharps describes the Goldman partnership as building on T. Rowe's "broad capabilities across public and private markets to offer clients the ability to unlock the potential of private capital as part of their retirement and wealth management strategies." Glenn August, founder and CEO of OHA, calls the Goldman partnership "an important milestone in OHA's growth with T. Rowe Price."

Solomon highlights Goldman and T. Rowe's "conviction in a shared legacy of success delivering results for investors."

"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," Solomon states.

A Goldman spokesperson highlights T. Rowe's "great brand" and "highly regarded leadership position in retirement." A T. Rowe spokesperson notes that the bundled provider's team serves more than two million retirement plan participants and has more than $1 trillion in retirement-related AUM. (T. Rowe has $1.7 trillion in AUMA** in total.)

"The two firms have been in conversations for about a year," a Goldman spokesperson writes. "They are the largest active target date manager, we have a 30-year track record in managing alternatives and we think the combination is really powerful as the retirement market continues to innovate."

"Working together, T. Rowe Price, OHA, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management bring expertise, access, and reach that is unique and powerful," a T. Rowe spokesperson writes.

*As of June 30, 2025.

**As of July 31, 2025. 

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