Ascensus has acquired another third-party administrator in its quest to build a national TPA business.
The record keeper announced Friday that it bought Beneco, a Scottsdale, Ariz., provider of retirement and health and welfare benefits administration services, from private equity firm Alpine Investors. The new firm is now part of FuturePlan by Ascensus, the record keeper's TPA business.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Beneco works primarily with contractors in the prevailing wage market, which comprises non-union businesses required to pay a prevailing wage for employees working on government projects. Beneco provides TPA services to more than 370 clients nationwide, according to Ascensus.
"Beneco is one of the largest prevailing wage specialists in the country. Adding their significant scale and unrivaled expertise to the FuturePlan team will allow us to help prevailing wage businesses to build a better future for their employees while giving them the ability to be more competitive with their contract bids," Jerry Bramlett, head of FuturePlan, said in a news release.
With the Beneco acquisition, FuturePlan now administers more than 44,200 retirement plans; as of June 30, FuturePlan had an estimated $70 billion in assets under administration.
The acquisition is the latest in a long string of purchases by Ascensus. Over the past two years, the record keeper has snapped up more than two dozen TPAs throughout the country, including United Retirement Plan Consultants, the firm's largest TPA acquisition to date.
Beneco is Ascensus' second acquisition in Arizona; in June, it purchased Pension Strategies, a Phoenix-based TPA firm.
"We continue to look at attractive opportunities that expand our existing businesses, fill product gaps and penetrate new geographies within the retirement and health and wealth market segments," Raghav Nandagopal, Ascensus' executive vice president of corporate development and M&A, said in the news release.
