TacticScaleWhat Principal Financial Does & How It Makes Money (PFG)
Updated October 2026 · reflects Principal Financial's latest reported financials
Retirement, asset management, and insurance provider for businesses and individuals. It earns fees on retirement plan administration and on assets it manages, plus premiums from group and individual insurance and spread income on annuities and other accumulation products.
How Principal Financial makes money
It earns fees on retirement plan administration and on assets it manages, plus premiums from group and individual insurance and spread income on annuities and other accumulation products.
What Principal Financial does
Principal Financial Group, founded in 1879 and based in Des Moines, Iowa, provides retirement, investment, and insurance services to businesses, individuals, and institutions around the world. Its Retirement and Income Solutions segment runs defined contribution plans such as 401(k) and 403(b) plans, defined benefit and executive plans, employee stock ownership plans, and pension risk transfer. It also offers IRAs, annuities, mutual funds, and trust and custody services. Principal Asset Management invests across equities, fixed income, real estate, and other alternatives, and also offers pension accumulation and income products. The Benefits and Protection segment sells group dental, vision, life, and disability insurance, along with individual life policies. These are aimed mainly at small and medium-sized businesses, their owners, and their employees.
Products & services
- 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plan services
- Pension risk transfer
- Principal Asset Management investment funds
- Individual and registered index-linked annuities
- Group dental, vision, and disability insurance
- Universal, indexed, and term life insurance
What is Principal Financial worth?
On an owner-earnings DCF, Principal Financial's most-likely value is about $232 versus a recent price near $107 (117% below fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$123) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Deeply discounted.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.
On the financials alone, $107 is below even the no-growth floor ($123); the market's discount — expectations and sentiment beyond the numbers — is pricing in ≈ -1.3%/yr. A bargain only if that pessimism is overdone.
Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →
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