Empower just closed a $340 million deal to acquire Milliman’s retirement and benefits administration business — adding about 750,000 DC and 780,000 DB participants across 1,500 plans. It’s the latest in a string of scale-building acquisitions (Personal Capital in 2020, then MassMutual and Prudential’s retirement divisions), but this one is different.
It signals a real push into benefits administration, completing what’s being called the “convergence triangle”: wealth, retirement, and healthcare, all under one roof.
The logic is simple. More participants means more people to cross-sell wealth services to, and employers get one integrated platform instead of juggling separate vendors for retirement, benefits, and healthcare.
This isn’t happening in isolation — it’s part of a bigger industry shift. Rising healthcare costs, new regulations, and tighter fiduciary scrutiny are pushing providers across the board toward this same convergence strategy. Meanwhile, smaller players without the scale or proprietary products to compete are increasingly likely to sell rather than fight it out. Expect more fee transparency and regulatory oversight in the benefits space too, echoing what DC plans went through years ago.
Read more insights in Fred Barstein’s WealthManagement article, “Empower Completes Convergence With Milliman Acquisition.”
