T. Rowe Price to buy F/m Investments, adding $19B in fixed income assets

What's the deal? T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ: TROW) has agreed to acquire F/m InvestmentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Washington, D.C.-based fixed income asset manager and ETF specialist with roughly $19 billion in assets under management as of July 31, 2026. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in early 2027, subject to customary conditions.

What's the endgame? The acquisition is set to lift T. Rowe Price's fixed income assets under management by nearly 9%, more than double its fixed income ETF assets, and expand its separately managed accounts (SMA) business. F/m will operate as "F/m Investments, a T. Rowe Price Company," keeping its brand, leadership, and operating model. Chief executive officer and co-founder Alexander Morris will report to Arif Husain, head of global fixed income.

What does F/m do? Founded in 2019 and an affiliate of 1251 Capital GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, F/m runs 20 ETFs spanning Treasuries, TIPS, corporate bonds, and municipal securities. Its US Benchmark Series was the first standardised suite of single-security US Treasury ETFs. The firm also launched the first dual-share class ETF and filed a first-of-its-kind application with the Securities and Exchange Commission for tokenised ETF shares.

Why now? "The acquisition reflects a thoughtful, disciplined approach to expanding our capabilities in areas where we see durable client demand," Husain said. He added that F/m's product development skills would complement T. Rowe Price's active fixed income lineup across its intermediary, institutional, retirement, and wealth platforms.

Morris framed the deal as a search for scale. "To continue to innovate and provide client value at scale, we needed a partner with relevant expertise, deep resources, and a shared vision," he said. "Our mission will remain the same."

The signal: The deal underscores how established active managers are buying their way into the fast-growing ETF market rather than building from scratch. For T. Rowe Price, which manages $1.87 trillion in client assets, absorbing a nimble ETF innovator — tokenised shares included — is a bet on where fixed income demand is heading.

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