Guggenheim Partners, the privately held global financial services firm, announced Wednesday that it would lift out Rydex|SGI and combine that ETF and alternatives firm with several of its investment management operations under the name Guggenheim Investments,which would have combined assets of about $119 billion.
Todd Boehly, president of Guggenheim Partners, will lead the renamed firm as head of Guggenheim Investments, along with Guggenheim CIO Scott Minerd; chief administrative officer Don Cacciapaglia; and former Rydex CEO Richard Goldman as COO.
In an interview Thursday with AdvisorOne, Goldman (left) positioned the transaction as "an expansion of Guggenheim's investment management operations, including folding in all of Rydex's operations, and streamlining the naming convention" of the many Rydex and Guggenheim mutual funds and ETFs. That is, with one exception: the target beta funds of Rydex will continue to have the Rydex name.
"I'll be playing a major role in leading the teams that have been at Rydex for a long time" in Guggenheim Investments, Goldman said, and that the company "absolutely intends" to expand its mutual fund and ETF lineup. "Our product array is very comprehensive, is complementary," he said. "We are very committed as an organization to establish ourselves as helping [advisor] clients capture market opportunities." One way to do so, he suggested, would be through Guggenheim's existing "institutional strength fixed income" investment products. Guggenheim Investments will also
"From a heritage point of view, Guggenheim and Rydex share a common perspective on clients—we want to be a trusted advisor to them," Goldman said, vowing, "we will listen to them, and help deliver intelligent solutions to them." Moreover, he said "our plan is to have well-developed distribution strategies" for all the advisor channels—RIA, broker-dealers and independents.
In the statement announcing the plan, Guggenheim said that with the acquisition of Rydex|SGI it expected to become one of the top 10 providers of ETFs worldwide, offering more than 100 ETFs and ETPs. Guggenheim Investments' consolidated ETF lineup, including BulletShares, CurrencyShares and RydexShares will be marketed in the U.S. under the Guggenheim name.
