Voya Financial (VOYA)

Financial services company Voya Financial (NYSE:VOYA) announced better-than-expected revenue in Q4 CY2025, with sales up 11.3% year on year to $2.11 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.94 per share was 6.6% below analysts’ consensus estimates.

Company Overview

Originally spun off from Dutch financial giant ING in 2013 and rebranded with a name suggesting "voyage," Voya Financial (NYSE:VOYA) provides workplace benefits and savings solutions to U.S. employers, helping their employees achieve better financial outcomes through retirement plans and insurance products.

Custody banks safeguard financial assets and provide services like settlement, accounting, and regulatory compliance for institutional investors. Growth opportunities stem from increasing global assets under custody, demand for data analytics, and blockchain technology adoption for settlement efficiency. Challenges include fee pressure from large clients, substantial technology investment requirements, and competition from both traditional players and fintech firms entering the space.

In retirement solutions, Voya competes with Fidelity, Empower, TIAA, Nationwide, Prudential, and MetLife. In health benefits, its competitors include Sun Life, Tokio Marine HCC, Cigna, Aetna, Aflac, MetLife, and Unum. For benefits administration, Voya faces competition from Alight, Businesssolver, and BSwift, while its investment management business competes with Principal Global Investors, Prudential, Ameriprise, Invesco, T. Rowe Price, and Franklin Templeton.

A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Regrettably, Voya Financial’s revenue grew at a mediocre 7% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This was below our standard for the financials sector and is a rough starting point for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within financials, a half-decade historical view may miss recent interest rate changes and market returns. Voya Financial’s annualized revenue growth of 7.2% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak. Note: Quarters not shown were determined to be outliers, impacted by outsized investment gains/losses that are not indicative of the recurring fundamentals of the business.

This quarter, Voya Financial reported year-on-year revenue growth of 11.3%, and its $2.11 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 5%.

Revenue growth is one major determinant of business quality, and the efficiency of operations is another. For Custody Bank companies, we look at pre-tax profit rather than the operating margin that defines sectors such as consumer, tech, and industrials.

The pre-tax profit margin includes interest because it's central to how financial institutions generate revenue and manage costs. Tax considerations are excluded since they represent government policy rather than operational performance, giving investors a clearer view of business fundamentals.

Over the last five years, Voya Financial’s pre-tax profit margin has fallen by 4.4 percentage points, going from 42.6% to 10.7%. However, fixed cost leverage was muted more recently as the company’s pre-tax profit margin was flat on a two-year basis.

Voya Financial’s pre-tax profit margin came in at 8% this quarter. This result was 1.7 percentage points better than the same quarter last year.

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.

Voya Financial’s EPS grew at a spectacular 23% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years, higher than its 7% annualized revenue growth. This tells us the company became more profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For Voya Financial, its two-year annual EPS growth of 5.4% was lower than its five-year trend. We hope its growth can accelerate in the future.

In Q4, Voya Financial reported adjusted EPS of $1.94, up from $1.50 in the same quarter last year. Despite growing year on year, this print missed analysts’ estimates, but we care more about long-term adjusted EPS growth than short-term movements. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Voya Financial’s full-year EPS of $8.94 to grow 12.5%.

Return on equity, or ROE, tells us how much profit a company generates for each dollar of shareholder equity, a key funding source for banks. Over a long period, banks with high ROE tend to compound shareholder wealth faster through retained earnings, buybacks, and dividends.

Over the last five years, Voya Financial has averaged an ROE of 14.8%, healthy for a company operating in a sector where the average shakes out around 10% and those putting up 25%+ are greatly admired. This is a bright spot for Voya Financial.

The debt-to-equity ratio is a widely used measure to assess a company's balance sheet health. A higher ratio means that a business aggressively financed its growth with debt. This can result in higher earnings (if the borrowed funds are invested profitably) but also increases risk.

If debt levels are too high, there could be difficulties in meeting obligations, especially during economic downturns or periods of rising interest rates if the debt has variable-rate payments.

Voya Financial currently has $2.10 billion of debt and $6.82 billion of shareholder's equity on its balance sheet, and over the past four quarters, has averaged a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.8×. We think this is safe and raises no red flags. In general, we’re comfortable with any ratio below 3.5× for a financials business.

We enjoyed seeing Voya Financial beat analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its EPS missed, and this seems to be dragging down shares. The stock traded down 3% to $73.25 immediately following the results.

Updated: February 3, 2026 at 4:55 PM EST

We think that the latest earnings result is only one piece of the bigger puzzle. If you’re deciding whether to own Voya Financial, you should also grasp the company’s longer-term business quality and valuation.

Voya Financial doesn’t top our investment wishlist, but we understand that it’s not a bad business. Although its revenue growth was mediocre over the last five years and analysts expect growth to slow over the next 12 months, its expanding pre-tax profit margin shows the business has become more efficient.

Voya Financial’s P/E ratio based on the next 12 months is 7.5x. This valuation multiple is fair, but we don’t have much faith in the company. We're fairly confident there are better stocks to buy right now.

Wall Street analysts have a consensus one-year price target of $86.80 on the company (compared to the current share price of $73.25).