As Voya Financial sells off insurance groups, attention turns to its broker-dealer

Voya Financial Inc. last month said it was selling its individual life insurance business, two years after it said it was selling its annuities businesses.

The company has said publicly that it intends to focus on retirement, investment management and employee benefits businesses, and its broker-dealer, Voya Financial Advisors Inc., is tucked under its retirement group.

But some in the industry perceive that Voya Financial, with roughly 1,700 advisers, could be the next broker-dealer up for sale, particularly as private equity funds are throwing money at and buying large broker-dealer networks like Advisor Group and Cetera Financial Group.

Voya Financial is in the early exploratory stages of a sale of the broker-dealer but has not yet hired an investment bank, said an industry executive familiar with the matter. "The company is going through a strategic assessment of its business units."

A spokesman for Voya Financial, Chris Breslin, said the company does not comment on rumors or speculation. The firm held its annual national sales conference for its advisers in Las Vegas this week.

"Voya wants to be known as the retirement planning broker-dealer, and what has hindered the effort is the perception that they are big, bureaucratic insurance-company owned B-D," said Jon Henschen, president of Henschen & Associates, a recruiting firm, who said he is not currently under contract with Voya Financial Advisors.

He said that there had recently been some turnover of recruiters at Voya Financial Advisors, an indication that growth could be stalled. The firm reported $458.8 million in total revenues in 2018, according to InvestmentNews data, an increase of 6.9% from a year earlier. Information for 2019 for broker-dealers is not yet available.

"When you see the flight of recruiters that’s a signal a firm could be coasting, and if it's coasting it's probably going to be up for sale," Mr. Henschen added.

Voya Financial Advisors has had technology problems in the past. In 2018, it agreed to pay $1 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges over a data security breach that compromised the personal information of thousands of customers. But last summer, it said it was launching its own digital adviser.