NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Cetera Financial Group, Inc. (Cetera), one of the nation’s largest networks of independently managed broker-dealers, for Cetera to acquire the independent financial planning channel of Voya Financial Advisors (VFA), Voya’s registered investment advisor and broker-dealer. Through the transaction, approximately 900 independent financial professionals serving retail customers with approximately $40 billion in assets will become part of Cetera.
The VFA legal entity and approximately 600 field and phone-based financial professionals who support Voya’s Retirement business and clients will remain with Voya. These individuals provide guidance, advice and financial wellness solutions to Voya’s plan sponsor clients and their plan participants and are core to Voya’s workplace strategy. Specifically, Voya’s field and phone-based financial professionals help Voya’s customers meet their evolving needs with both in-person financial planning as well as Voya’s award-winning digital financial wellness tools to offer more personalized planning for employers and their employees.
The transaction reflects Voya’s increased focus on institutional clients and financial planning support that is closely aligned with the worksite, from large to small employers across all market segments and their millions of employees across the U.S.
“At Voya, we are committed to helping millions of Americans improve their financial well-being by supporting their health and wealth programs through the workplace,” said Rodney O. Martin, Jr., chairman and CEO, Voya Financial, Inc. “This transaction is an opportunity to position our financial advisory teams for continued success, with our field and phone-based financial professionals being an important and strategic part of Voya and enabling us to meet the growing financial wellness needs of employers, employees and their households. These 600 field and phone-based financial professionals provide guidance to our workplace clients through a multi-channel, personalized, flexible service model in order to serve customers when, where and how they need.”
Voya expects that the transaction will provide the company with over $300 million in deployable proceeds at closing.
“The proceeds generated by the transaction will add to our strong excess capital position and reinforces the significant progress we have made in focusing our operations on workplace solutions and institutional clients. In addition to returning excess capital to shareholders, we also will continue to reinvest in our Retirement, Investment Management and Employee Benefits businesses to support our growth plans. We believe that we are well positioned to continue our positive momentum and achieve strong outcomes for all of our stakeholders,” added Martin.
Voya noted that it intends to provide more details on the transaction during its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 earnings call on Feb. 10, 2021.
The transaction is expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is serving as financial advisor, and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP is serving as legal counsel to Voya in connection with this transaction.
About Voya Financial®
Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), helps Americans plan, invest and protect their savings — to get ready to retire better. Serving the financial needs of approximately 13.8 million individual and institutional customers in the United States, Voya is a Fortune 500 company that had $7.5 billion in revenue in 2019. The company had $657 billion in total assets under management and administration as of Sept. 30, 2020. With a clear mission to make a secure financial future possible — one person, one family, one institution at a time — Voya’s vision is to be America’s Retirement Company®. Certified as a “Great Place to Work” by the Great Place to Work® Institute, Voya is equally committed to conducting business in a way that is socially, environmentally, economically and ethically responsible. Voya has been recognized as a 2020 World’s Most Admired Company by Fortune magazine; one of the 2020 World’s Most Ethical Companies® by the Ethisphere Institute; as a member of the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index; and as a “Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion” on the Disability Equality Index by Disability:IN. For more information, visit voya.com. Follow Voya Financial on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @Voya.
Forward-Looking and Other Cautionary Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company does not assume any obligation to revise or update these statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or changes in strategy. Forward-looking statements include statements relating to future developments in our business or expectations for our future financial performance and any statement not involving a historical fact. Forward-looking statements use words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with a discussion of future operating or financial performance. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement due to, among other things, (i) general economic conditions, particularly economic conditions in our core markets, (ii) performance of financial markets, (iii) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (iv) the effects of natural or man-made disasters, including pandemic events and specifically the current COVID-19 pandemic event, (v) mortality and morbidity levels, (vi) persistency and lapse levels, (vii) interest rates, (viii) currency exchange rates, (ix) general competitive factors, (x) changes in laws and regulations, such as those relating to Federal taxation, state insurance regulations and NAIC regulations and guidelines, (xi) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities, and (xii) our ability to successfully manage the separation of our individual life and legacy variable annuities businesses on the expected timeline and economic terms. Factors that may cause actual results to differ from those in any forward-looking statement also include those described under “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations and Financial Condition (“MD&A”) – Trends and Uncertainties” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2019, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on Feb. 21, 2020, and in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended Sept. 30, 2020, filed with the SEC on Nov. 5, 2020.
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