Goldman Sachs Group Inc's asset-management business has agreed to purchase Westpeak Global Advisors, a firm that aims to beat market indexes by using factors other than company size to pick stock investments. The deal, disclosed on Tuesday, comes as Goldman is working to bulk up its asset management unit, partly by strengthening its quantitative product offerings. It is also part of a broader trend of money managers offering so-called "smart beta" strategies that deliver the high returns of some actively managed fund but with the lower cost of investing in an index fund or exchange-traded fund.Westpeak creates and distributes its investment strategies through alliances with companies including FTSE Group, Russell Investment Group and Natixis. Like other smart beta firms it picks stocks for its index funds based on factors apart like volatility, liquidity or relative value, rather than market capitalization.In an interview, Armen Avanessians, the head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management's quantitative business, and Gary Chropuvka, its head of quantitative investment strategies, said the deal was attractive because Westpeak's products complemented GSAM's existing offerings and because its employees were a good cultural fit within the Wall Street bank."We were enamored with the approach and we're quite excited about the people," said Avanessians.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (Goldman Sachs), is a global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Shares of GS traded higher by 1.69% or $2.66/share to $160.46. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $139.92 and as high as $181.13. On average, 3642920 shares of GS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 4533458.
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