Corebridge and Equitable Stockholders Approve Their $22 Billion All-Stock Merger on July 30, With Closing Still Expected by Year-End 2026 Pending Regulators

One of the biggest deals in American life insurance has cleared its shareholder vote. Corebridge Financial and Equitable Holdings announced on July 30, 2026 that their stockholders had approved the all-stock merger agreed in March. The facts below come from the companies' July 30 release, distributed by Business Wire, and from the companies' March 26 announcement as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The July release says the vote results are preliminary until certified, and it does not say whether any regulatory approval has been received, so we cannot say how close the deal is to completion. Amounts are in US dollars.

Start with the vote. The companies said about 99.96% of the votes cast at the Corebridge special meeting and 97.24% of the votes cast at the Equitable meeting were in favour. Those votes represented about 82.14% of Corebridge's outstanding shares and about 85.84% of Equitable's. The results are preliminary and are subject to certification by the inspectors of election, after which the final tally will be filed on Form 8-K. The Securities and Exchange Commission had declared the Form S-4 registration statement, the document that describes the deal to shareholders, effective on June 23, 2026. The shareholder meetings were held on the day of the announcement, according to the release.

Now the terms. The deal was announced on March 26, 2026. It is an all-stock merger in which the companies will form a new parent company. Each Corebridge share will convert into 1.0000 new parent share, and each Equitable share will convert into 1.55516 new parent shares. Based on closing prices on March 25, 2026, the combined company was valued at about $22 billion. Corebridge shareholders will own about 51% of the combined company and Equitable shareholders about 49%. The company will use the Equitable name and brand, will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker EQH and will be headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Who will run it? Marc Costantini, Corebridge's chief executive, will be president and chief executive of the combined company, and Robin Raju, Equitable's chief financial officer, will be its chief financial officer. According to the July release, Equitable's chief executive, Mark Pearson, will serve as executive chair; the March announcement said both Costantini and Pearson were slated to serve as executive chair, which we read as a staged arrangement without being able to confirm the details. The board will have 14 members, seven designated by each company, with Corebridge's chair Alan Colberg as lead independent director. Nippon Life, a major Corebridge shareholder, had three board representatives who voted for the deal, and it said it expects to remain a long-term strategic investor.

What will the combined business look like? The companies say it will serve more than 12 million customers and have about $1.5 trillion in assets under management and administration. They expect operating earnings of more than $5 billion and cash generation of more than $4 billion, based on 2027 consensus estimates plus run-rate synergies, according to the release's footnotes. They expect pro forma shareholders' equity above $30 billion, excluding accumulated other comprehensive income, and a leverage ratio of 26%. At the end of 2025, Corebridge's life fleet risk-based capital ratio was about 435% and Equitable's combined ratio under the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' formula was about 475%. Those ratios compare an insurer's capital with the amount regulators require, so higher numbers mean more cushion.

The financial promises are as follows. The companies say the deal will be immediately accretive to earnings per share and cash generation, rising to over 10% by the end of 2028, and that adjusted return on equity should exceed 15% by the end of 2027. They expect more than $500 million of annual run-rate expense synergies by the end of 2028, mainly from consolidating functions, information technology systems and vendors, along with revenue, capital and tax benefits. A strategic element involves AllianceBernstein, the asset manager that Equitable majority-owns, which distributes in 21 countries; over time, the combined company expects to move more than $100 billion of Corebridge's general and separate account assets to it. All of these are the companies' own projections and not independent forecasts, and they may not be achieved.

What happens next? The deal still requires regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and the companies expect it to close by the end of 2026. State insurance regulators review changes of control of insurers, and they look at how policyholders will be protected. The July release does not say whether any approvals have been received. Both companies also said in March that they expected to defer their 2026 annual meetings.

What does it mean for policyholders and advisers? Existing annuities and policies remain obligations of the insurance subsidiaries that issued them, and the release does not say that any contract terms will change. Customers of either company may see changes in brand and service over time, since the combined company will operate under the Equitable name. For the industry, the merger is a sign of consolidation among retirement providers. This article is a news summary and not investment or insurance advice.