Finance

The drop in wealth was equivalent to the GDP of Italy.

The purchase will add to one of the asset manager’s key businesses, Aladdin.

Strategic buyers have less cash but more flexibility, experts say.

The hit to wealth management from a difficult trading environment was already visible in the fourth quarter.

Despite the weakest one-year performance, these funds had double-digit annualized returns the past three years.

After expanding into a $7 trillion industry, index funds are facing slower asset growth and declining fee revenue.

The deal to add ready-made packages of funds to the firm’s asset management arm is expected to close in the first half of the year.

Outperformance has been driven in part by a push among investors to cut their tax bills after new limits were set on state and local deductions.

Commissions and cash-sweep revenue jumped by more than a combined $100 million in 2018 — even as the parent firm’s longtime chairman left the company.

The products have already attracted $1.3 billion in new assets this year, more than half what they took in during 2018.