Activist to Voya: "Have You Tried Selling?"

So here's what's going on with Voya Financial: this US asset manager that handles about $1.1 trillion in pension and insurance products is getting some heat from an activist hedge fund called Toms Capital Investment Management (TCIM). Basically, TCIM has bought into the company and is now pushing management to think about either selling the whole thing or getting rid of some parts that aren't pulling their weight.

The big issue? Voya's got this health insurance arm - the stop-loss business - that insures companies against health benefit claims, and honestly, it's been a drag. It lost $10 million in the last quarter of 2025. TCIM thinks this underperforming unit is holding back the rest of the company.

Here's the thing though: Voya's main gig in retirement and wealth management is actually doing pretty well. They just hit over $1 trillion in assets on their retirement and investment platform, with $360 billion being actively managed. But despite these solid numbers, the stock's been stuck in neutral for the past couple years and the company's sitting at around $7 billion in market value.

Timing-wise, this is all happening during a pretty wild moment for asset management deals. There's been almost $25 billion worth of transactions in just the first three months of 2026 - that's already more than half of what went down in all of 2025. We're talking about big moves like Trian Fund Management picking up Janus Henderson for $8.6 billion and Nuveen buying Schroders for £9.9 billion.

Voya's been on people's radar as a potential takeover target for a while now, especially since it was spun out from Dutch bank ING back in 2014. With an activist now in the mix and deal fever running hot in the industry, things could get interesting pretty quickly.

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