Goldman Sachs to Acquire NEOS Investments in $2.25 Billion Deal, Expanding Bitcoin Income ETF Lineup

Goldman Sachs agreed to buy NEOS Investments for up to $2.25 billion in cash and equity, picking up the options-income specialist’s ready-made lineup of bitcoin and ether income funds in one stroke.

The acquisition, announced Wednesday, tacks on roughly $30 billion in ETF assets across 19 funds. Layer that onto Goldman’s existing book and the Innovator Capital Management business it closed in April and the bank would hold more than $130 billion in total ETF assets as of June 30. That ranks eighth among active ETF managers globally, per Morningstar data cited by Goldman.

Closing is set for the first quarter of 2027, pending regulatory approval. The $2.25 billion price tag is capped and tied to performance and service commitments neither company has detailed. The cash-to-equity split went undisclosed.

NEOS brings three crypto-adjacent funds to the table. The largest: the NEOS Bitcoin High Income ETF (BTCI), which held over $1 billion in net assets at announcement after its October 2024 launch. A second bitcoin fund, XBCI, went live in February 2025 and sat at about $111 million. The NEOS Ethereum High Income ETF (NEHI), launched in December 2025, held over $77 million.

None of the three hold bitcoin or ether directly. They buy spot crypto ETPs and sell call options against those positions to generate monthly distributions. BTCI touts a yield near 27% at a 0.99% expense ratio. That figure comes with caveats. The fund’s SEC prospectus notes distributions may in part represent return of capital rather than net investment income. BTCI is also down 42.55% over the past year, sliding from a 52-week high of $65.87 to roughly $28.40, per Bloomberg terminal data.

The purchase puts Goldman head-to-head with BlackRock in a still-young category. BlackRock launched its iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BITA) on Nasdaq in June 2026, targeting a 15-25% annual yield by selling covered calls on 25-35% of its IBIT holdings at a 0.65% expense ratio. BITA has drawn about $59 million in net assets so far. Goldman filed for its own structurally similar Bitcoin Premium Income ETF with the SEC on April 14, 2026, roughly two months after BlackRock’s product hit the market. The bank has not said whether the NEOS acquisition supersedes that filing.

Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, thinks it does. “Nowww I get why GS never launched the BTC covered call product they filed months ago,” he wrote on X. “Better to leapfrog [BlackRock’s BITA] vs me too?” His reasoning: buying an established $1 billion fund beats starting from zero when the incumbent already arrived first.

Goldman chairman and CEO David Solomon framed the deal around active ETF demand rather than crypto specifically. “As investor demand for active ETFs grows, NEOS’ disciplined investment approach is highly complementary to our capabilities across buffer, managed outcome and income strategies,” Solomon said in a statement.

The derivative-income ETF category NEOS operates in has swelled to roughly $180 billion in assets industry-wide, compounding at more than 70% annually since 2021, per Morningstar. Goldman’s prior acquisition of Innovator Capital Management, an options-ETF shop focused on buffered downside, cost roughly $2 billion and closed in April 2026. Two deals in twelve months. Both options-income. Both pushing Goldman toward the top of the active ETF league table.

NEOS co-founders Troy Cates and Garrett Paolella will join Goldman Sachs Asset Management as partners after closing. The rest of NEOS’s investment and client-service staff is expected to follow. Traders, as ever, disagree on whether a 27%-yielding fund down 42% in a year is a feature or a warning.