Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

Given the volatile market, are you defintely tracking the financial powerhouse that is Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA), a company whose total client assets surged to $785 billion as of September 30, 2025, with an estimated full-year revenue of $7.81 billion? The firm's strategic focus on the workplace and institutional clients, plus the 2025 acquisition of OneAmerica's retirement business, has propelled its total assets across Retirement and Investment Management past the significant $1 trillion milestone, a clear signal of scale in the US financial landscape. What does this massive scale mean for their core mission to help millions of Americans plan, invest, and protect their assets, and how exactly do their diverse segments-Wealth Solutions, Investment Management, and Employee Benefits-generate that revenue? Read on to understand the history, ownership structure, and precise mechanics that drive one of the largest players in retirement and benefits.

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) History

You're looking for the origin story of Voya Financial, and it's a classic case of a massive European financial conglomerate shedding its U.S. arm to focus on core banking. The company you know today as Voya Financial is a direct descendant of ING U.S., which was spun off from its Dutch parent, ING Group, through a mandatory restructuring following the 2008 financial crisis. This wasn't a startup story, but a complex, multi-year separation that created an independent, publicly-traded company.

Given Company's Founding Timeline

Year established

While Voya Financial's predecessors first entered the U.S. market in the 1970s, the company as an independent entity was established in 2013 with its Initial Public Offering (IPO) of ING U.S., Inc.. The official rebranding to Voya Financial happened in April 2014.

Original location

The headquarters for the newly independent company were established in New York City, U.S., specifically at the Helmsley Building.

Founding team members

The transition to an independent, publicly-traded company was spearheaded by the existing leadership of ING U.S. The CEO who guided the company through the IPO and the subsequent rebranding to Voya Financial was Rodney O. Martin, Jr., who served as Chairman and CEO until 2022. The current CEO, as of November 2025, is Heather Lavallee.

Initial capital/funding

The financial independence of Voya Financial began with the May 2013 IPO of ING U.S. on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol VOYA. The total offering was approximately $1.3 billion, with the primary component raising $600 million in gross proceeds directly for the company. This capital was crucial for establishing a standalone balance sheet and canceling a prior $1.5 billion contingent funding facility with ING Bank N.V..

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The biggest shift for Voya Financial wasn't a single product launch, but the strategic pivot from a sprawling, multi-line insurer to a focused workplace and institutional financial solutions provider. This was a defintely a necessary move to drive margin growth.

The most transformative moments center on two things: the separation from the parent and the subsequent M&A activity that sharpened its focus on the workplace:

• The 2013-2014 Spin-off and Rebrand: The IPO and name change marked a clean break from the legacy of ING Group, allowing the new public company to define its own strategy and capital allocation, free from European regulatory constraints.
• The 2025 OneAmerica Acquisition: This deal cemented Voya's position in the retirement space. It contributed significantly to the company's scale, helping Voya's total assets across Retirement and Investment Management exceed $1 trillion in the second quarter of 2025. Here's the quick math: the Wealth Solutions business saw Q1 2025 pre-tax adjusted operating earnings of $207 million, an increase largely due to the acquired business.
• The Integrated Health and Wealth Strategy: The 2023 acquisition of Benefitfocus, Inc. was a game-changer, allowing Voya to offer a truly integrated platform for health and wealth benefits. This is a clear action to meet the rising demand for holistic employee financial wellness solutions. You can dive deeper into the financial health impact of these moves in Breaking Down Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

The company's Q3 2025 after-tax adjusted operating earnings of $239 million reflect the success of this focused strategy, showing a nearly 30% increase in adjusted operating EPS year-over-year. This means their strategy of disciplined execution and strategic acquisitions is paying off right now.

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Ownership Structure

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) is overwhelmingly controlled by institutional investors, a common structure for a major publicly-traded financial services company, which means strategic decisions are heavily influenced by large asset managers.

This high concentration of ownership-nearly all of it held by institutions-translates to a focus on long-term shareholder value and consistent capital returns, but it also means management must defintely stay aligned with the interests of a few massive firms like BlackRock and The Vanguard Group.

Given Company's Current Status

Voya Financial is a public company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol VOYA. As of November 2025, it maintains a market capitalization of approximately $6.57 billion, reflecting its standing as a significant player in the retirement, investment management, and employee benefits sectors.

The company operates under the continuous scrutiny of the market and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is typical for a company of this scale. You can see their commitment to clarity in their Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA).

Given Company's Ownership Breakdown

The ownership structure is dominated by institutional investors, who hold nearly all of the outstanding shares. This creates a powerful block of shareholders, making Voya Financial's stock highly stable but also sensitive to the trading patterns of these major firms. Here's the quick math on who owns the company, based on filings as of the third quarter of 2025.

To be fair, the top 25 shareholders alone own about 86.75% of the company, which shows just how concentrated the decision-making power is.

Given Company's Leadership

The Executive Committee steers Voya Financial, focusing on the company's core segments: Wealth Solutions, Health Solutions, and Investment Management. This team is responsible for mapping near-term risks to clear actions, especially around the integration of workplace benefits and savings solutions.

• Heather Lavallee: Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Appointed in July 2022, her total yearly compensation for the 2025 fiscal year was approximately $9.72 million, a figure consistent with market pay for a firm of Voya Financial's size.
• Michael Katz: Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
• Jay Kaduson: Chief Executive Officer of Workplace Solutions. He was appointed to this key role in January 2025.
• Matt Toms: Chief Executive Officer of Voya Investment Management.
• Trevor Ogle: Chief Legal Officer, whose appointment was effective May 2, 2025.

The average tenure of the management team is about 3.2 years, which suggests a relatively experienced but also recently refreshed leadership group driving the company's strategy.

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Mission and Values

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) operates on a clear, dual-focus principle: driving financial confidence for 15.7 million clients while simultaneously fostering a culture of integrity and inclusion. Their core purpose transcends quarterly earnings, aiming to simplify the complex world of health, wealth, and investing for every American.

Voya Financial's Core Purpose

You're not just buying a retirement plan; you're partnering with a company whose very existence is framed by a simple, powerful ideal. Voya's core purpose is the engine that guides their strategy, from product development to community outreach, and it's a commitment to fighting for a better financial future for everyone. It's a clear statement of their cultural DNA.

Here's the quick math: with over $1.09 trillion in total assets under management and administration as of June 2025, their scale means this purpose impacts a significant portion of the US workforce and institutional investment landscape.

Official Mission Statement

The mission statement is the tactical execution of their core purpose. It breaks down their large-scale goal into manageable, human-centric actions. This focus is why they serve approximately 45,000 US employers and over 9.7 million retirement plan participants.

• Make a secure financial future possible-one person, one family, one institution at a time.

Vision Statement

The vision is the aspirational destination Voya is working toward, a future state for their customers that goes beyond just having money. Honestly, it's about reducing the stress that comes with financial uncertainty. This is the mindset behind platforms like myVoyage, which connects workplace benefits and savings to clear your path.

• Clearing your path to financial confidence and a more fulfilling life.

Voya Financial's Core Values

Their corporate values are the non-negotiable behaviors that underpin their operations, guiding their 10,000 employees daily. These values are a significant part of why they've been recognized as a 'Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion' for eight consecutive years as of 2025.

• We Have Customer Passion: Provide the best service and respond with urgency.
• We Do The Right Thing: Uphold the law and treat everyone with respect.
• We Are The We: Act as one team, accountable individually and collectively.
• We Have a Winning Spirit: Be agile, adapt, and never settel.
• We Care: Positively impact communities and be defintely inclusive.

Given Company slogan/tagline

While the core purpose is their rallying cry, Voya also uses a simplified, action-oriented phrase to communicate their service model to clients. It's a clean one-liner that tells you exactly what they do.

• Plan, Invest, Protect.

If you want to dig deeper into the institutional side of this mission, especially who is buying into this vision, you should read Exploring Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) How It Works

Voya Financial operates by connecting workplace benefits and retirement savings, acting as an integrated health, wealth, and investment company that primarily serves the US institutional and individual markets.

The company generates revenue by collecting fees for administering retirement plans, managing client assets, and underwriting/administering employee insurance benefits, allowing it to maintain a capital-light business model that generates strong cash flow.

Voya Financial's Product/Service Portfolio

Voya Financial's Operational Framework

Voya's operational framework is built on an integrated, digital-first approach that links its three core segments to simplify the complex financial journey for clients, from saving for retirement to managing health expenses.

• Process Integration: The company focuses on connecting retirement savings (Wealth Solutions) with health protection (Health Solutions) at the workplace, making it easier for employees to manage their entire financial picture.
• Strategic Scale: The acquisition of OneAmerica Financial's retirement plan business, completed in 2024, significantly expanded the Retirement segment's scale, driving client assets to $757 billion as of June 30, 2025.
• Technology Backbone: The prior acquisition of Benefitfocus provides the administration technology platform, which is crucial for delivering a simplified, digital experience for employers managing their benefits and retirement plans.
• Capital Discipline: Management maintains tight control over expenses, which helped the Retirement segment expand its adjusted operating margin to 39.8% for the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2025.

Here's the quick math: total revenues for the third quarter of 2025 were $2.13 billion, showing the consistent revenue generation from this diversified model.

You can learn more about the institutional interest in the firm here: Exploring Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Voya Financial's Strategic Advantages

The company's market success comes from its capital efficiency and its ability to adapt to the evolving needs of the US workplace, particularly the demand for integrated financial wellness solutions.

• Capital-Light Model: Voya operates a predominantly fee-based, capital-light business, which translates into higher returns on equity (ROE) and robust free cash flow compared to more balance-sheet-intensive peers; this is defintely a key differentiator.
• Cash Generation: The firm is a cash-generating machine, expecting to grow its excess capital by approximately $750 million in 2025, which provides flexibility for share buybacks, dividends, and strategic growth investments.
• Holistic Workplace Focus: By integrating retirement, health, and wealth solutions, Voya captures a larger share of the employer-employee relationship, especially by expanding into high-growth, higher-margin areas like Disability and Leave Management.
• Investment Management Expertise: Voya Investment Management is a top-tier institutional asset manager, leveraging its 50-year legacy and 300+ investment professionals to offer differentiated solutions across public and private markets.

What this estimate hides is the ongoing challenge in the Employee Benefits segment, where disciplined underwriting and pricing are required to maintain margins following a period of negative Stop Loss claim development.

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) How It Makes Money

Voya Financial, Inc. primarily makes money by collecting fees for managing retirement and investment assets, earning a spread on guaranteed products, and generating underwriting profit from employee benefit insurance products. It's a classic fee-for-service and spread-based model, heavily weighted toward the stable, long-term nature of retirement savings.

Voya Financial's Revenue Breakdown

To understand where the cash flow comes from, we look at the pre-tax adjusted operating earnings (AOE) by business segment for the third quarter of 2025. This gives us a clear picture of the profit engines. Here's the quick math on the segment contributions to the total segment AOE of $370 million in Q3 2025.

Business Economics

The Retirement and Investment Management segments are the twin engines driving Voya Financial's growth, relying on fee-based revenue, which is a high-margin, capital-light model. The Employee Benefits business, while smaller, provides diversification but has faced recent headwinds.

• Retirement (70.5% of Segment AOE): This is the core business, generating revenue through two main mechanisms: fee-based revenue (charged as a percentage of assets under management, or AUM) and spread revenue (the difference between what Voya earns on its investment portfolio and what it credits to clients on guaranteed products). The acquisition of business from OneAmerica has been a major tailwind, driving net revenues for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ended September 30, 2025, up 14.9%.
• Investment Management (16.7% of Segment AOE): Revenue here is almost entirely fee-based, tied directly to the size of assets under management (AUM) and assets under advisement (AUA). Net inflows of $3.9 billion in Q3 2025 show strong commercial momentum, helping TTM net revenues grow 7.6%. The model is highly scalable, so as AUM grows, the profit margin expands.
• Employee Benefits (12.7% of Segment AOE): This segment makes money from underwriting profit on group life, disability, and Stop Loss insurance. The key is disciplined pricing and managing the loss ratio (claims paid versus premiums collected). TTM net revenues for this segment declined 10.9% through Q3 2025, primarily due to negative Stop Loss claim developments in the prior year, but Q3 2025 earnings saw a significant jump to $47 million due to improved underwriting margins. This segment is defintely a work in progress.

The company's strategic focus is on growing its fee-based businesses, which is more predictable and less capital-intensive than the spread-based insurance model. You can read more about the company's long-term direction in its Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA).

Voya Financial's Financial Performance

As of November 2025, Voya Financial is demonstrating strong capital generation and profitability, largely driven by its strategic acquisitions and market momentum in its core segments. The focus on capital efficiency is clear in the numbers.

• Total Client Assets: As of September 30, 2025, total client assets stood at $785 billion, a 29% year-over-year increase, reflecting the impact of the OneAmerica acquisition and positive capital markets. The company also surpassed $1 trillion in total assets across Retirement and Investment Management in Q2 2025.
• Profitability: For the third quarter of 2025, Voya Financial reported after-tax adjusted operating earnings of $239 million, or $2.45 per diluted share, representing a nearly 30% increase in adjusted operating EPS year-over-year. Net income available to common shareholders was $176 million.
• Return on Equity (ROE): The adjusted operating return on equity (ROE) improved to 18% for the year-to-date period through Q3 2025, a strong indicator of efficient capital deployment and robust operational performance.
• Capital Generation: Voya Financial generated over $200 million of excess capital in Q3 2025, bringing the year-to-date total to approximately $600 million. This capital is used for share repurchases, dividends, and strategic investments, directly benefiting shareholders.

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Market Position & Future Outlook

Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) has solidified its position as a focused, capital-efficient provider, with its strategic shift toward asset-light businesses like Retirement and Investment Management paying off handsomely. The company's total client assets reached approximately $785 billion as of September 30, 2025, reflecting a significant year-over-year jump, largely driven by the acquisition of OneAmerica Financial's retirement business. This focus is translating directly to the bottom line, with after-tax adjusted operating earnings climbing to $239 million in the third quarter of 2025, a nearly 30% increase from the prior year period.

Competitive Landscape

In the competitive US financial services market, Voya Financial competes fiercely in its core segments: retirement, investment, and employee benefits. While direct market share percentages vary widely by product and segment, Voya maintains a strong standing, especially following its strategic acquisitions. For a deeper dive into the institutional interest, you can check out Exploring Voya Financial, Inc. (VOYA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Note: Market Share for Voya and Principal is a proxy based on Q3 2025 client/managed assets relative to the Q2 2025 total US Defined Contribution (DC) market of $13.0 trillion. MetLife's figure is a reported Q1 2025 share in its competitive arena, which includes Group Benefits/Insurance.

Opportunities & Challenges

The near-term outlook for Voya is centered on capitalizing on its recent M&A activity and expanding its fee-based offerings, but still, you must watch for macroeconomic pressures and segment-specific risks.

Industry Position

Voya Financial is a major player in the US retirement and benefits space, positioned as a leader in key niches rather than a generalist giant.

• Voya is ranked as a Top 5 provider of retirement plans in the US, measured by total participants as of May 2025.
• The Investment Management segment manages approximately $366 billion in assets as of September 30, 2025, and is one of the 50 largest institutional asset managers globally.
• In the Health Solutions business, Voya is a Top 3 group provider of supplemental health insurance, a high-growth, fee-based area.
• The company's capital strength is defintely a differentiator; it generated approximately $600 million in excess capital year-to-date through Q3 2025, supporting shareholder returns and future growth investments.

The strategic focus is clear: divest from capital-intensive legacy insurance products and double down on the higher-margin, fee-based Retirement and Investment Management segments. This shift makes Voya a more streamlined and resilient financial services firm moving into 2026.