Through every cycle, one thing stays the same: our dedication to clients.

At New York Life Investments, we carry forward the legacy of our parent company. We are focused on long-term performance, built to serve across market cycles and generations. We are comprised of the global asset management businesses of New York Life, one of the oldest and largest mutual life insurers in the U.S. with the highest financial strength ratings currently awarded by all four major credit agencies—including AAA.1 Through it all, one constant remains: our unwavering commitment to our clients. 2

  • 1845

    Nautilus Insurance Co. founded.

  • 1849

    New York Life renamed New York Life Insurance Co.

  • 1856

    Company assets surpass $1 million.

  • 1923

    Company assets surpass $1 billion.

  • 1952

    Sells first annuity marking entry into the pension market.

  • 1968

    Company assets surpass $10 billion.

  • 1980

    Introduction of our first Guaranteed Investment Contract (GIC) marking a shift in focus to active investment management rather than playing a largely administrative role.

  • 1984

    Purchase of blue-chip money manager MacKay Shields heralding our entrance into the business of independent active management of equity and fixed income.

  • 1986

    Founding of the MainStay fund family, sold by both our agency force and third-party advisors to retail investors.

  • 1990

    Company assets surpass $50 billion.

  • 1991

    MainStay begins offering institutional mutual funds making us the first insurance company to offer them.

  • 1994

    MainStay retail funds surpass $5 billion, and MainStay institutional funds approach $2 billion.

  • 1999

    Founding of GoldPoint Partners, a premier private equity manager.

  • 2000

    New York Life Investment Management LLC (NYLIM) is created to provide institutional and retail clients with a diverse offering of fixed-income, equity and alternative products and solutions under one roof.

  • 2001

    Founding of Madison Capital Funding, a direct lender to private equity-backed middle-market companies.

  • 2002

    New York Life becomes the largest mutual life insurance company in America.

  • 2010

    New York Life initiates a strategic focus on growing its investments business to help offset low interest rates—the company has $287 billion in assets under management.

  • 2010

    Acquisition of U.S.-based alternative investment boutique, PA Capital, formerly known as Private Advisors.

  • 2013

    NYLIM opens South Korea office.

  • 2014

    Company assets under management surpass $540 billion.

  • 2014

    Acquisition of Europe-based boutique, CANDRIAM (previously named Dexia Asset Management), a pioneer in sustainable and responsible investing. Ausbil, an Australian-based investment manager, was also part of this acquisition.

  • 2015

    Acquisition of IndexIQ, a leading provider of institutional and liquid alternatives exchange traded funds (ETFs).

  • 2016

    NYLIM opens Japan office.

  • 2017

    Company assets under management surpass $555 billion.

  • 2018

    CANDRIAM announces strategic partnership with Tristan Capital Partners, a premier European real estate manager.

  • 2019

    MainStay Funds is named in Barron's annual ranking of active mutual fund managers, "Best Fund Families of 2018." ³

  • 2020

    New York Life celebrates its 175th Anniversary.

  • 2021

    MainStay Funds named a top 10 mutual fund family for 2021 by Barron’s, based on relative performance for the 2021 calendar year among 51 qualifying fund families for the Best Fund Family Category.⁴

  • 2022

    Apogem Capital is announced as the dedicated private markets alternatives boutique, bringing together GoldPoint Partners, Madison Capital Funding and PA Capital.

  • 2024

    Partnership with Bow River Advisers is announced. New York Life Investments takes a minority interest and is distribution partner for the Bow River Capital Evergreen Fund (EVERX).

  • 2024

    MainStay mutual funds and IndexIQ ETFs are both renamed “NYLI.” Candriam takes a 40% minority equity interest in Andera Partners, a leading European investment firm based in Paris.⁵

  • 2025

    Candriam expands strategic partnership with its largest client, Belfius Bank, which acquires a 33% minority stake in Candriam.


1. New York Life has received the highest financial strength ratings currently awarded to any U.S. life insurer by Standard & Poor's (AA+); A.M. Best (A++); Moody's (Aa1); and Fitch (AAA). Source: Individual Third-Party Ratings Reports as of 5/19/2025. Dividends are not guaranteed. The financial strength of New York Life Insurance Company applies only to its insurance products and not to investment products, which are subject to market risk and fluctuation in value.


2. Founded in October 2013, as a result of a corporate restructuring, NYL Investors LLC carries on certain of the investment advisory activities previously conducted by (NYLIM). Prior to the formation of NYL Investors, its investment divisions operated as part of NYLIM, which is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company.


3. Source: Barron’s, 3/8/19. Overall, MainStay Funds ranked number 2 for the one-year period, 21 for the five-year period, and 31 for the 10-year period ended December 31, 2018, out of 57 fund families. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, which will vary.

1. New York Life has received the highest financial strength ratings currently awarded to any U.S. life insurer by Standard & Poor's (AA+); A.M. Best (A++); Moody's (Aa1); and Fitch (AAA). Source: Individual Third-Party Ratings Reports as of 5/19/2025. Dividends are not guaranteed. The financial strength of New York Life Insurance Company applies only to its insurance products and not to investment products, which are subject to market risk and fluctuation in value. 


4. How Barron’s Ranks the Fund Families: All mutual and exchange-traded funds are required to report their returns (to regulators as well as in advertising and marketing material) after fees are deducted, to better reflect what investors would actually experience. But our aim is to measure manager skill, independent of expenses beyond annual management fees. That’s why we calculate returns before any 12b-1 fees are deducted. Similarly, fund loads, or sales charges, aren’t included in our calculation of returns.

Each fund’s performance is measured against all of the other funds in its Refinitiv Lipper category, with a percentile ranking of 100 being the highest and one the lowest. This result is then weighted by asset size, relative to the fund family’s other assets in its general classification. If a family’s biggest funds do well, that boosts its overall ranking; poor performance in its biggest funds hurts a firm’s ranking.

To be included in the ranking, a firm must have at least three funds in the general equity category, one world equity, one mixed equity (such as a balanced or target-date fund), two taxable bond funds, and one national tax-exempt bond fund.

Single-sector and country equity funds are factored into the rankings as general equity. We exclude all passive index funds, including pure index, enhanced index, and index-based, but include actively managed ETFs and so-called smart-beta ETFs, which are passively managed but created from active strategies.

Finally, the score is multiplied by the weighting of its general classification, as determined by the entire Lipper universe of funds. The category weightings for the one-year results in 2021 were general equity, 37.1%; mixed asset, 20.6%; world equity, 16.8%; taxable bond, 20.9%; and tax-exempt bond, 4.5%.

The category weightings for the five-year results were general equity, 37.3%; mixed asset, 21%; world equity, 16.5%; taxable bond, 20.8%; and tax-exempt bond, 4.4%. For the 10-year list, they were general equity, 38.6%; mixed asset, 19.2%; world equity, 16.9%; taxable bond, 20.5%; and tax-exempt bond, 4.8%

The scoring: Say a fund in the general U.S. equity category has $500 million in assets, accounting for half of the firm’s assets in that category, and its performance lands it in the 75th percentile for the category. The first calculation would be 75 times 0.5, which comes to 37.5. That score is then multiplied by 37.1%, general equity’s overall weighting in Lipper’s universe. So it would be 37.5 times 0.371, which equals 13.9. Similar calculations are done for each fund in our study. Then the numbers are added for each category and overall. The shop with the highest total score wins. The same process is repeated to determine the five- and 10-year rankings.


Source: Barron’s, 2/21/22. Overall, MainStay Funds ranked number 9 for the one-year period, 25 for the five-year period, and 31 for the 10-year period ended December 31, 2021, out of 51, 49, and 45 fund families, respectively. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, which will vary. For the most recent MainStay Funds performance, please visit our web site at newyorklifeinvestments.com.

The S&P 500 Index measures the performance of 500 widely held stocks in US equity market. Standard and Poor's chooses member companies for the index based on market size, liquidity and industry group representation. Included are the stocks of industrial, financial, utility, and transportation companies. Since mid 1989, this composition has been more flexible and the number of issues in each sector has varied. It is market capitalization-weighted.


5. In 2024, MainStay mutual funds and IndexIQ ETFs were rebranded “NYLI” to align with the broader New York Life Investments brand.