A giant, old school stockpicking mutual fund firm may make a push into alternatives.

William J. Stromberg T. Rowe Price President, CEO

Bill Stromberg, CEO of T. Rowe Price [profile], tells Bloomberg that the Baltimore-based asset manager might get into alts, though timing isn't clarified. ("At some point," the publication writes.)

"We're on our toes," Stromberg tells Bloomberg. "We're trying to keep abreast of the changes, and keep an open mind about how we innovate and evolve our business."

Another product development area for T. Rowe, the publication notes, is active ETFs, as the SEC has recently approved T. Rowe's application for semi-transparent ones (with quarterly holdings disclosures like traditional mutual funds, instead of daily disclosures like traditional ETFs). Yet Stromberg makes clear why T. Rowe hasn't gone passive.

"There wasn't much room for another player," Stromberg tells the publication.

The article portrays 82-year-old T. Rowe's success as counter to the broader woes facing many active managers and attributes part of that success to T. Rowe's strength with retirement plans. The T. Rowe team (of more than 7,000 people) had $1.181 trillion in AUM as of November 30 (nearly triple what T. Rowe started the decade with), including $282 billion in its target date products alone. As of the end of 2018, 52 percent of T. Rowe's AUM was in defined contribution retirement plans, a company spokesman confirms. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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