In my previous seat I was Global Head of Capital Markets for the ETF business for Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and in that role I had many client meetings on my calendar in which I was walking clients through the roadmap of how to go about getting into the ETF space, and specifically the active ETF space. These meetings were with core institutional clients of Goldman Sachs — including other asset managers, hedge funds, and insurance companies — so I was happy to spend a couple of hours at a time on the phone with them.
Most of this was happening in 2018 and 2019, right around when Rule 6c-11 (the ETF Rule) was coming online. That seemed to be a bit of a catalyst, although in hindsight I think it was one of the ingredients in a soup that was already cooking. [With the ETF Rule] the SEC made it easier to launch an ETF, but it still was not easy. People still needed the roadmap. So when I was speaking with one of the partners here at Goldman Sachs about all of these client conversations I was having about ETFs, she asked me exactly the right question, which was “Why are you not trying to solve this problem holistically for our clients?” When we went back and reviewed the preceding 18-month period, we had talked to 41 separate clients representing $3 trillion in assets, all wanting exactly the same thing: How do we get into this space? How do we take our existing strategies, put them in an ETF wrapper, and deliver them to our clients in that manner?
The Goldman Sachs ETF Accelerator was started and built to serve that need for our clients. As global COO of this business over the last 18 months, I’ve been busy building out both the U.S. as well as global teams that are serving our clients. We’re a digital platform that allows our clients to launch, list, and manage their own ETFs, and do it faster and more cost-efficiently than they could do it on their own.
Bloomberg
Source link
