Standard Life has signed a £1.2bn ($1.5bn) bulk
purchase annuity deal (BPA) with UK bar and restaurant firm Mitchells &
Butlers.
The BPA deal covers over 20,000 members of the
Mitchells & Butlers pension plan, both deferred members and pensioners. The
transaction was concluded in May and it now means that all members of both the
Mitchells & Butlers Pension Plan, and the Mitchells & Butlers Executive
Pension Plan are now fully insured.
In a press release announcing the deal, the
chairman of the pension plan trustees said that the deal followed strong
investment performance and as a result had been carried out several years ahead
of schedule.
XPS Pensions Group acted as the lead advisers
to the trustees, while legal advice was provided by Gowling WLG.
Mitchells & Butlers was established in 1888
and operates nearly 2000 units of the UK’s best known bar and restaurant chains
including All Bar One and Toby Carvery.
This is the second large deal Standard Life has
announced this month, following the $1.3bn transaction with fellow insurer, Chubb UK. A few weeks earlier the Scottish insurer
completed a $100 deal with defunct insurer MGM.