Empower

Is Empower publicly traded?
No. Empower is a private subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under ticker GWO.

Who owns Empower?
Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America, owned by Great-West Lifeco of Winnipeg, which is controlled by Power Corporation of Canada and ultimately the Desmarais family.

Is Empower the same company as Personal Capital?
Personal Capital is now part of Empower. Empower acquired it in 2020 and merged it into Empower Personal Wealth in January 2023, retiring the name.

How large is Empower?
It administers approximately $1.8 trillion for roughly 19 million participants, making it the second-largest US retirement services company by participants.

When was Empower founded?
The Empower brand launched in 2014 when Great-West Lifeco consolidated its US retirement businesses. Its corporate lineage traces to Great-West Life & Annuity operations dating to 1891.

Who runs Empower?
Edmund Murphy III is president and CEO, based in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Empower's institutional ancestry runs to the Great-West Life Assurance Company, founded in Winnipeg in 1891, and its US arm Great-West Life & Annuity, which established Colorado operations that later became Empower's home base in Greenwood Village.

The Empower name appeared in 2014 when Great-West Lifeco merged its US retirement businesses, including the acquired recordkeeping operations of Putnam Investments and others, under the Empower Retirement brand. The company then executed a steady acquisition campaign: it bought J.P. Morgan's retirement plan recordkeeping business, MetLife's retirement unit, MassMutual's retirement plan business in 2020 (closed 2021), and Prudential's full-service retirement business in a $3.55 billion deal completed in 2022. The Prudential transaction alone added roughly 4,300 plans and 4 million participants.

In parallel, Empower acquired Personal Capital in 2020 for up to $1 billion, buying the leading digital wealth dashboard and hybrid advisory platform. In January 2023 it merged Personal Capital with its retail IRA and wealth operations to launch Empower Personal Wealth. The unit crossed $100 billion in assets under administration in October 2025, and by 2026 management was openly discussing acquiring a national registered investment adviser to deepen its high-net-worth coverage.

Edmund Murphy III has led the company as president and CEO throughout its expansion era, overseeing its rise from a regional insurer's US arm to a diversified retirement and wealth platform.

As a private subsidiary, Empower does not publish a standalone ESG report at the depth of listed peers; sustainability disclosure rolls up to Great-West Lifeco's reporting. Its governance exposure centers on fiduciary obligations to millions of plan participants, an area where recordkeepers face recurring class action scrutiny over fees and conflicts.

Empower has faced litigation typical of large recordkeepers, including excessive fee class actions brought by plan participants. In a closely watched case, plaintiffs sued Empower over fees in its own employee 401(k) plan; the company settled. Legacy Personal Capital entered a 2019 SEC settlement for failing to adequately disclose compensation conflicts tied to a clearing arrangement, remediated before the Empower acquisition closed.

More broadly, Empower's strategy of marketing wealth products to retirement plan participants sits inside the industry-wide debate over whether recordkeepers exploit captive distribution. The Department of Labor's evolving fiduciary rules remain the central regulatory variable for its business model.