Goldman Sachs to Acquire Bitcoin Income ETF Manager NEOS for Up to $2.25 Billion

The acquisition will also give Goldman control of NEOS’s 19 funds and its options-based ETF platform with $30 billion in assets. Combined with Goldman’s existing $40 billion in options-based ETF assets and the assets tied to its acquisition of Innovator Capital Management announced in December, the bank’s total ETF assets under management will exceed $130 billion. That would place Goldman among the world’s eight-largest active ETF managers.

Balchunas wrote that the deal helps explain why Goldman filed for its own Bitcoin covered-call ETF several months ago but never launched it. In his view, the bank opted to buy an established product rather than build one itself. Goldman registered a similar product, the Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on April 14.

BlackRock, meanwhile, launched its own Bitcoin income ETF, BITA, on Nasdaq on June 16. BITA targets annual yields of 15% to 25% and applies covered calls to 25% to 35% of its IBIT holdings. Its annual fee is 0.65%, below BTCI’s 0.99%.

Morningstar says the derivatives income ETF market now has about $180 billion in industrywide assets under management and has grown at an average annual rate of more than 70% since 2021.