Empower Retirement to buy Personal Capital in $1 billion deal

Empower Retirement has agreed to buy digital adviser Personal Capital in a deal valued at up to $1 billion, the companies announced Monday.

The tie-up would bring Personal Capital’s online and human adviser services to participants in Empower’s massive record-keeping business, which includes about 9.7 million retirement plan participants.

The deal represents “the next step forward in the evolution of an integrated platform to deliver personalized advice, financial wellness and comprehensive financial planning to millions of individual investors and retirement plan participants,” Empower CEO Edmund Murphy said in the company’s announcement.

“In addition, the retirement plan sponsors and advisors we serve will be able to offer their plan participants a more powerful retirement benefit that is highly valuable in a competitive labor market,” Murphy said.

That includes the ability to give retirement plan clients “a singular view of their entire financial picture,” the companies stated in their announcement. “This enhanced visibility will in turn create new opportunities for plan sponsors to offer improved financial wellness benefits that are highly tuned to the needs of individual employees.”

Greenwood Village, Colorado-based Empower oversees $656 billion across about 40,000 retirement plans and $13 billion in a total of 135,000 individual retirement accounts, according to the firm.

Personal Capital, based in Redwood Shores, California, manages more than $12 billion in assets among 2.5 million clients, the company stated.