Vanguard has agreed to buy Altruist, a wealth management tech platform, for a price the Wall Street Journal estimates at $4bn, while Victory Capital plans to acquire First Eagle Investments in a deal that would nearly double its assets under management to almost $600bn. These moves reflect a broader wave of asset manager mergers despite strong equity markets. Victory previously tried to acquire Janus Henderson, which was ultimately taken over by Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners.

Meanwhile, T Rowe Price has recorded 21 straight quarters of outflows and its shares have fallen 50 per cent over five years. The deals highlight different strategies: Vanguard is moving closer to wealth managers by owning adviser-facing technology, while Victory is pursuing classic consolidation, expecting $280mn in annual savings and a potential present value of $2.5bn in extra profit. Victory says it has about 150 potential targets among funds managing between $50bn and $500bn.

Pricing pressure is most acute in public securities markets but is expected to extend to private markets.