Fort Myers retirement benefits firm closes California acquisition

Foster & Foster Consulting Actuaries, a health and welfare plan consulting firm based in Fort Myers, has acquired California-based Bartel Associates LLC.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Bartel Associates has “provided quality and cost-effective actuarial consulting services to public agencies for the past 19 years,” according to a statement. Its core business is focused in performing Other Postemployment Benefits consulting. The acquisition “will enable Foster & Foster to broaden its OPEB consulting practice by expanding these services on behalf of a larger client base,” the release adds. Like Foster & Foster, Bartel also provides pension-consulting services to public entities, which are part of CalPERS, one of the largest public pension funds in the world.

This deal follows a string of key acquisitions Foster & Foster has made in recent years, including last year’s acquisition of Beyer Barber in Pennsylvania and Rodwan Consulting in Michigan.

“This latest acquisition significantly expands our footprint into the West Coast Market, deepens our exceptional team of actuaries and bolsters our health and welfare plan consultants, who are experienced in public-sector pensions and Taft-Hartley markets,” Foster & Foster CEO Brad Heinrichs says in the statement. “Foster & Foster is quickly becoming a national leader in providing actuarial services to public retirement programs. We are excited to collaborate with our new colleagues to provide additional tools and resources to our growing client base.”

“Foster & Foster is a highly reputable firm that shares our number one mission, which is to always put the interests of clients first,” Bartel Associates founded John Bartel adds in the release. “We’re thrilled to join an outstanding team of actuaries who share our passion for high quality work for public sector entities and systems. I am confident our current clients will continue to see the same level of service and our employees will continue to grow under Foster & Foster’s leadership.”

Founded in 1979, Foster & Foster provides actuarial pension and health and welfare consulting services to public, labor, nonprofit and private organizations nationwide. It handles 1,000 public pension and health and welfare plans in the United States and provides strategic guidance to a wide range of public sector organizations to help them forecast and navigate the economic perils of pension reform and other municipal cost-cutting measures.