Victory Capital takes another step toward $1T with First Eagle acquisition
Victory Capital Holdings , which recently missed out on acquiring Janus Henderson , has agreed to buy First Eagle Investments for about $7 billion, as consolidation continues apace across the asset management industry.
The acquisition of First Eagle brings Victory's assets under management to roughly $571 billion, and continues its strategy of buying asset management firms, keeping their brands and investment teams largely intact, and moving them onto a common operating and distribution platform.
The San Antonio-based firm has completed eight increasingly ambitious acquisitions since 2014. In 2025, Paris-based asset manager Amundi took a 26% stake in Victory in exchange for handing it Amundi US, a deal that added $120 billion of assets to Victory's platform.
Victory will pay about $4.4 billion in cash and issue $2 billion of new shares to sellers Genstar Capital , which took a majority stake in August last year, and First Eagle employees. It will also assume $575 million of First Eagle debt carrying a 7.25% coupon.
Traditional asset managers are seeking safety in size, as they contend with fee pressure, higher technology costs, and growing competition from passive funds and private-market strategies.
New York-based First Eagle manages about $222 billion across equity, fixed-income and global value strategies, as well as about $41 billion in collateralized loan obligations and other alternative credit assets. This will serve as the combined company's alternative-investing platform, Victory said.
First Eagle has recorded net inflows in each of the past three years. It also carries a higher average fee rate than Victory. Its roughly $1.5 billion of expected 2026 revenue implies a fee rate of roughly 68 basis points, compared with 47.9 basis points at Victory.
Victory also expects the deal to produce about $280 million in annual expense savings, equivalent to roughly 27% of First Eagle's estimated 2027 cost base. It has not disclosed where these savings will come from.
The deal will also increase Victory's debt, inflated by $4.45 billion of acquisition financing provided by Bank of America and RBC Capital Markets . Net leverage is expected to rise to about 3.2x at closing before falling toward 2x by the end of 2028.
The acquisition sees Victory leapfrog Janus Henderson and its $500 billion of AUM in the size stakes. Victory ultimately wants to manage $1 trillion.
Victory's approach, however, is quite different to that of the eventual buyers of Janus Henderson: Trian Fund Management and General Catalyst .
The hedge fund and VC firm put greater weight on the use of technology and artificial intelligence in their plan for Janus, while Victory's First Eagle presentation focused on scale, distribution and cost savings.
Victory shares rose as much as 6% on Wednesday and touched a 52-week high.
