Mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price is contracting out the technology and operations parts of its business to Florida-based financial technology company FIS in deal that will shift 280 of its 1,000 Colorado Springs employees to FIS.
Brian Lewbart, a T. Rowe Price spokesman at the company's Maryland headquarters, said the employees affected by the transaction will stay in the same jobs at same location with comparable pay and benefits. FIS has signed a deal for space in the two-building T. Rowe Price operations center on Briargate Parkway in northern Colorado Springs to house the operations it is taking over, he said.
The move is scheduled to be completed Aug. 1 and also involves another 520 T. Rowe Price employees at an operations center in Owings Mills, Md. The company employed nearly 7,700 people on March 31. T. Rowe Price closed another operations center in Tampa, Fla., in 2018 as more of its customers got help online; most of the 220 jobs remaining after the closure were moved to the Colorado Springs center.
The shift to FIS resulted from a review T. Rowe Price began two years ago aimed at expanding its retirement plan business. T. Rowe Price said in a news release Tuesday that the review focused on the firm's ability "continue providing quality services, further increase operational efficiency, and enhance delivery of innovative retirement solutions for plan sponsors and participants while strengthening the firm’s position in the industry."
The review led to T. Rowe Price expanding a relationship it had with FIS for more than 30 years, taking over retirement technology development and core operations for T. Rowe Price. After the deal, T. Rowe Price will focus on recordkeeping, investment management, client service and related services, the company said in the release.
“Our defined contribution business is a key component of our strong retirement franchise and an important contributor to our diversified distribution strategy, " T. Rowe Price CEO Bill Stromberg said in the release. "The recordkeeping business is also very dynamic and highly competitive, and following an extensive strategic review of the business, we concluded that expanding our partnership with FIS would best accelerate the transformation of the business and support scalable growth for the long term."
The deal allows T. Rowe Price to "accelerate the pace of enhancements it delivers to clients, including recordkeeping modernization; additional retirement income experiences; new financial wellness and digital payment capabilities; and incorporation of the latest in artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics technology," the company said in the release.
Jacksonville, Fla.-based FIS is the world's largest processing and payments provider for merchants, banks and capital markets companies. FIS made $3.4 billion in profits last year on $12.6 billion in revenue. The company operates a 46-employee financial technology incubator in Denver, one of several innovation labs it has worldwide.
T. Rowe Price opened an investment services center in Colorado Springs in 1998 and expanded with a second building in 2006. The complex can accommodate up to 1,400 people and is on a 31-acre Briargate site that can hold two more buildings.
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