Great West subsidiary Empower closes acquisition of Milliman's retirement administration business

TSX:GWO

WINNIPEG, MB, Sept. 2, 2026 /CNW/ -- Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSX: GWO) ("Great West") subsidiary Empower today announced the closing of Empower's acquisition of Milliman's retirement plan and benefits administration business, expanding Empower's workplace solutions capabilities across defined benefit, defined contribution, and health and welfare benefits administration. The transaction was first announced on June 30, 2026.

The acquisition expands Empower's capabilities in the defined benefit marketplace and advances the company's strategy of delivering integrated workplace benefits solutions. It adds specialized defined benefit administration expertise to Empower's existing retirement, wealth management, stock plan and consumer-directed healthcare offerings.

Approximately 800 employees are joining Empower as part of the transaction.

With the completion of the transaction, Empower has added approximately 400 defined benefit plans representing approximately 790,000 participants and US$80 billion in client assets¹. Empower has also added more than 1,100 defined contribution plans representing approximately 750,000 participants and more than US$50 billion in client assets, as well as 100 health and welfare administration clients serving approximately 100,000 participants².

In total, the transaction grows Empower's footprint to more than 22 million lives served, more than US$2.3 trillion in client assets and 96,000 workplace plans, consisting of both defined contribution and defined benefit plans.

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¹ This is a non-GAAP financial measure. Additional information about this measure is incorporated by reference from the "Non-GAAP Financial Measures and Ratios" section of Great West's Q2 2026 Management's Discussion and Analysis, available at www.sedarplus.ca. 

² As of Dec. 31, 2025. The figures presented in the body of this release reflect Empower's reporting methodology. Milliman utilizes a different reporting method, which may result in a different breakdown of the data.

ABOUT GREAT WEST

Great West is a financial services holding company focused on building stronger, more financially secure futures. We operate in the United States, Canada and Europe under the brands Empower, Canada Life and Irish Life. Together we provide wealth, retirement, group benefits and insurance and risk solutions to our approximately 40 million customer relationships. As of June 30, 2026, Great West's total client assets were $3.7 trillion.

Great West trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the ticker symbol GWO and is a member of the Power Corporation group of companies. To learn more, visit greatwestlifeco.com.

ABOUT EMPOWER

Recognized as a leader in retirement services and wealth management,³ Empower administers approximately US$2.3 trillion in assets⁴ for more than 22 million individuals through the provision of workplace and individual retirement plans, advice, financial planning and investments. To learn more, visit empower.com 

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³ Pensions & Investments DC Recordkeeper Survey (2025). Ranking measured by total number of participants as of December 31, 2024.

⁴ As of March 31, 2026. Assets under administration (AUA) refers to the assets administered by Empower. AUA does not reflect the financial stability or strength of a company.

Cautionary note regarding Forward-Looking Information

From time to time, Great West makes written and/or oral forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including in this release. Forward-looking information includes statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as "achieve", "ambition", "anticipate", "believe", "could", "estimate", "expect", "initiatives", "intend", "may", "objective", "opportunity", "plan", "potential", "project", "target", "will" and other similar expressions or negative versions of those words. These include, without limitation, statements about:  the expected benefits of the acquisition, including statements about increased scale, capabilities of Empower.

Forward-looking statements are based on expectations, forecasts, estimates, predictions, projections and conclusions about future events that were current at the time of the statements and are inherently subject to, among other things, risks, uncertainties and assumptions about the Company, economic factors and the financial services industry generally, including the U.S. retirement and benefits industry. This information has been provided to the reader to give an indication of Great West's current expectations concerning the impact of the proposed acquisition and these statements may not be suitable for other purposes. They are not guarantees of future performance, and actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements.

In all cases, whether or not actual results differ from forward-looking information may depend on numerous factors, developments and assumptions, including, without limitation, the achievement of waiver of closing conditions to the proposed acquisition, the ability to integrate and leverage the proposed acquisition and achieve anticipated benefits and synergies, the achievement of expense synergies and client retention targets from the proposed acquisition assumptions around sales, pricing, fee rates, customer behaviour (including contributions, redemptions, withdrawals and lapse rates), global equity and capital markets (including continued access to equity and debt markets and credit instruments on economically feasible terms), geopolitical tensions and related economic impacts, interest and foreign exchange rates, inflation levels, liquidity requirements, investment values and asset breakdowns, hedging activities, financial condition of industry sectors and individual issuers that comprise part of the Company's investment portfolio, credit ratings, taxes, impairments of goodwill and other intangible assets, technological changes, including use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), in our business, breaches or failure of information systems and security (including cyber attacks), assumptions around third-party suppliers, changes in local and international laws and regulations, changes in accounting policies and the effect of applying future accounting policy changes, changes in actuarial standards, unexpected judicial or regulatory proceedings, catastrophic events, continuity and availability of personnel and third-party service providers, unplanned changes to the Company's facilities, customer and employee relations, levels of administrative and operational efficiencies, and other general economic, political and market factors in North America and internationally.

The above list is not exhaustive, and there may be other factors listed in the Company's filings with securities regulators, including those set out in the "Risk Management" and "Summary of Critical Accounting Estimates" sections of the Company's 2025 Annual MD&A and in the Company's annual information form dated February 11, 2026 under "Risk Factors". These, along with other filings, are available for review at www.sedarplus.ca. The reader is cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Other than as specifically required by applicable law, the Company does not intend to update any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Cautionary note regarding Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This release contains some non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial measures as defined in National Instrument 52-112 "Non-GAAP and Other Financial Measures Disclosure". Terms by which non-GAAP financial measures are identified include, but are not limited to, "client assets". Non-GAAP financial measures are used to provide management and investors with additional measures of performance to help assess results where no comparable GAAP (IFRS Accounting Standards) measure exists. However, non-GAAP financial measures do not have standard meanings prescribed by GAAP (IFRS Accounting Standards) and are not directly comparable to similar measures used by other companies. Refer to the "Non-GAAP Financial Measures and Ratios" section in Great West's Q2 2026 MD&A for the appropriate reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to measures prescribed by GAAP, as well as additional details on each measure.

SOURCE Great-West Lifeco Inc.

For more information: Investor & Media Relations: Shubha Khan, 416-552-5951, [e-mail]