Author: Aaron Woolner

Pension scheme consolidator Clara Pensions has signed its second superfund deal after making a £600m ($786m) agreement with the Debenhams Pension Scheme. The Debenhams Pension Scheme has been under assessment by the UK’s Pension Protection Fund (PPF) since its parent company went bankrupt in 2019. Under the superfund deal, 10,000 scheme members will be transferred to Clara Pensions. Under the terms of the transaction, £4m in back-payments will be paid to members who received reduced pensions during the PPF assessment period, when member benefits were aligned to PPF Compensation levels. The scheme trustees were advised by Vidett, the specialist administration…

Legal & General Retirement America (LGRA) and RGA have teamed up to complete a $700m pension risk transfer with utility provider First Energy. The retiree lift-out was executed in December and covers about 2,000 retired members, equal to roughly 8% of the company’s total pension liability associated with its former generation subsidiaries. LGRA is lead administrator and will be fully responsible for the service and administration of all participants transferred as part of the transaction. LGRA started administering the pensions on 5 March. Aon and K&L Gates advised FirstEnergy on the transaction. RGA has been active in the US PRT sector…

US telecoms firm Verizon has inked a deal with Prudential Financial and RGA that will see $5.9bn of pension liabilities transferred to the (re)insurance firms. The pension risk transfer (PRT) transaction covers 56,000 retirees and their beneficiaries who started receiving benefits before 1 January 2023. The members will be drawn from the Verizon Management Pension Plan and the Verizon Pension Plan for Associates The obligations have been split almost 50:50 between the two carriers. However, Prudential will assume 100% of obligations in a certain number of unspecified jurisdictions. The Prudential Insurance Company of America, a subsidiary of Prudential Financial, will…

Ford Canada has signed a bulk purchase annuity deal worth C$923m ($686m) with a group of three insurers which will cover the benefits of over 2,700 scheme members. RBC Insurance, Sun Life, and Desjardins Group teamed up to provide a group annuity for the Ford of Canada Retirement Pension Plan Number 3, to cover scheme members who retired on or before 1 June 2021. RBC was the lead insurer on the deal, the press release announcing it did not specify how the liabilities were split between the three participating firms. The Canada pension risk transfer market saw a record 155…

The Vector Pension Scheme has agreed a £114m ($143m) bulk purchase annuity (BPA) deal with Standard Life that will see the insurer take on the liabilities of 1,800 members. The pension fund is sponsored by the UK arm of US water treatment firm Vector Industries and the deal was agreed in November 2023. In a statement announcing the move, the chair of the Vector Pension Scheme trustees said that the transaction was the culmination of a multi-year process which involved the sale of the fund’s illiquid asset portfolio. UK-based consulting firm XPS Pensions Group acted as the lead advisers to…

Bermuda-based Warwick Re has announced its second deal after signing a reinsurance agreement with a US insurer over an in-force block of US annuity business. The deal with the unnamed life insurer will see Warwick Re take on the underlying portfolio risks while the cedant continues to service and administer the policies. The deal also includes an agreement by Warwick Re to provide quota share reinsurance for future fixed annuity flow business. According to a press release by the reinsurer, the deal will result in its asset base increasing by $550m. The reinsurer’s founder and CEO, Chris McGlashan, said that…

Nearly seven million Americans over 65 had Alzheimer’s dementia in 2023, according to figures from the US Alzheimer’s Association (USAZ).  USAZ estimates this accounts for one in nine of the total population in this age group, a figure that rises sharply as people get older with one third of those over the age of 85 having some form of the disease.  According to Swiss Re’s 2023, ‘Future of life expectancy’ report, Alzheimer’s accounts for up to 80% of the total number of dementia sufferers, a group that the firm predicts will expand in size as societies age.   Despite over $40bn…

In May last year The Netherlands Future of Pensions Act was approved by lawmakers and came into force on 1st July 2023. The new law heralds a step-change in the Dutch pension industry and a wholesale switch away from a defined benefit-based system.  Subject to a four-year transition period, all pension providers in the Netherlands need to switch from defined benefit (DB) model to a defined contribution (DC) one by 1st January 2027.  But November elections in the country brought in a new coalition government made-up of four parties, three of which campaigned on manifestos containing pledges to make major…

UK pension risk transfer (PRT) firm Just Group has offloaded $500m of longevity and asset risk to Bermuda-based reinsurer Warwick Re as part of a quota share deal. It is the third funded reinsurance deal by Just Group since 2019 and the inaugural transaction for Warwick Re, which received its first issuer rating (BBB – Fitch) in December 2023. In a press release announcing the move, Warwick Re CEO and founder Chris McGlashan said the firm was also looking to strike deals in Europe and the US as well as the UK. Just Group has been an active player in…

Centrus Energy has bought a $187m group annuity contract from an unnamed insurer that will result in the obligations of roughly 1,400 scheme beneficiaries being transferred. The deal was struck on 12 October last year and the scheme members’ benefits were transferred across to the insurer on 1 December, according to the nuclear energy services firm’s latest 10K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to the 9 February filing, the annuity purchase was funded with pension plan assets worth $171.4m. As a result of the transaction Centrus Energy recorded income of $28.6m in the fourth quarter of…