Betterment Buys Marcus Invest, Goldman Sachs Focusing on Parent Brand

Published on May 3, 2024

Goldman Sachs sold its digital investment advisory business Marcus Invest to Betterment.

Why it matters: For Goldman Sachs, the spotlight refocuses onto the parent brand; for Betterment, the Marcus digital advisory customer should fit right in.

Driving the news: Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon announced a restructuring in October 2022 to refocus on its main businesses – trading and investment banking; asset and wealth management; and transaction banking, including its Apple Card partnership – while selling off non-core aspects of Marcus, which it created in 2016. The unit’s losses in its final year before the re-org were estimated at $1.2 billion. 

Be smart: While Betterment walks away with digital advisory clients, Goldman Sachs retains the Marcus Deposits platform, with three million customers and $100 billion in consumer deposits.

What they're saying: “The concept of being broad, with a consumer footprint, is not really playing to our strength,” Solomon told CNBC in 2022. 

“But when you look at our wealth platform, where we have access to millions of individuals, the ability to add banking services to that and align with that actually plays to our strength.”

As for the part of the business now going to Betterment, “we’re going to continue to offer these banking services adjacent to our wealth platform”.

And for the brand: “We’re moving in a direction of really amplifying Goldman Sachs.”

The details: 

  • Digital advisory accounts moving to Betterment will be on the platform June 29.

 

  • The total number of accounts or price of the deal were not disclosed.

 

  • Betterment has 850,000 customers with $45 billion in assets under management.

 

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