ShareBuilder 401k has gone through a number of owners over the years, but now it is back to being independent.
Stuart Robertson co-founded the Seattle-based retirement services provider in 2005 under its parent company ShareBuilder Corp. It was acquired by ING Direct in 2007 for $220 million. Four years later, Capital One entered the Seattle market by acquiring of ING Direct Direct, a subsidiary of global financial institution ING Group, for $9 billion.
Now Robertson, along with former Capital One executives, has bought ShareBuilder 401k back.
Capital One plans to close its Seattle tech office by the end of the year, but the spinout of ShareBuilder 401k is unrelated to the closure and has been in the works for awhile, the company said.
The newly independent ShareBuilder 401k has about 30 employees. It handles retirement plans for more than 6,500 companies, with a focus on small and mid-sized businesses, and it is adding more than 1,000 firms to its customer roster per year.
ShareBuilder 401k calls itself a pioneer in offering all “ETF” 401k plans that are made up entirely of publicly traded funds. ShareBuilder 401k emphasized the ability for companies to purchase plans digitally, making it easier for more organizations to start up retirement plans.
