US asset manager Voya Financial faces sale pressure from activist fund
Toms Capital Investment Management demands $1.1tn pension and insurance group sells all or parts of its business
US asset manager Voya Financial is facing pressure from an activist investor to sell all or parts of the $1.1tn pension and insurance products empire, as a wave of consolidation sweeps the industry.
Toms Capital Investment Management, a US-based hedge fund, has built a position in Voya encouraging the company to consider putting itself up for sale or offloading its underperforming health insurer arm, according to people familiar with the matter.
The hedge fund believes Voya’s business insuring employers against health benefit claims is dragging down the wider company, the people said. The so-called stop-loss business ran a $10mn operating loss in the last quarter of 2025.
Voya, which was carved out of Dutch bank ING in 2014, mostly oversees higher-earning retirement and wealth management funds. Shares in Voya are roughly flat over the past two years, giving the company a market value of nearly $7bn on Thursday morning.
Voya has outperformed rivals on inflows, recently surpassing $1tn of assets across its wider retirement and investment platform, of which $360bn are actively managed. But TD Cowen analysts said in a note this month that the performance of its stop-loss business had “pressured sentiment”.
Voya has long been earmarked as a potential takeover target, as several large insurers with asset management arms have expressed a desire to add scale through dealmaking.
TCIM’s demands of Voya follow a sharp uptick in dealmaking in the asset management sector, as fund houses rush to scale up globally and private equity eyes business with transatlantic reach.
There were nearly $25bn worth of deals in the sector in the first three months of the year, more than half the total for all of last year, according to data provider Dealogic.
Last month, a consortium led by Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management triumphed over Victory Capital in a bidding war for investment house Janus Henderson, sealing an $8.6bn deal. Earlier this year, UK asset manager Schroders was bought by rival Nuveen for £9.9bn.
Founded by alumni of London-based hedge fund GLG Partners in 2017, TCIM rarely launches public-facing activist campaigns and prefers to work behind the scenes. But TCIM has recently built stakes and pushed for strategic changes at Pringles maker Kellanova, US Steel, Tylenol maker Kenvue and retail giant Target.
Voya declined to comment, while TCIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.