Author: Aaron Woolner

Chemring pension fund has signed a £65m ($81m) buy-in deal to transfer all the scheme’s liabilities to Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC). The UK firm, which provides tech services to the aerospace sector, has transferred a total of 485 current pensioners and 328 deferred members to the insurer. The latest deal means that PIC is providing pensions to a total of 339,000 people and it’s now managing just shy of £45bn-worth of assets. Barnett Waddingham was the lead transaction adviser and scheme actuary, and Burges Salmon provided legal advice to the fund. News of the Chemring transaction came a few days…

The UK arm of aerospace and defence firm Thales has offloaded its pension scheme to Rothesay Life in a £2.7bn ($.34bn) deal with the insurer. The transaction was announced on December 1 and covers the whole of the Thales UK pension scheme. It means Rothesay takes responsibility for the benefits of over 16,000 fund members; 10,512 pensioners and dependents as well as 5,915 deferred members. The deal included an undisclosed cash payment by Thales and involved the transfer of over £750m of illiquid assets held within the pension scheme to Rothesay. Lead transaction advisers were PWC and A&O’ Rothesay received legal…

Unisys has bought a $250m group annuity contract from F&G Annuities & Life which will transfer a substantial portion of the tech firm’s US pension liabilities to the insurer. Two F&G subsidiaries – Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company, and Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company of New York – will take responsibility for pension benefits for approximately 3,900 retirees and beneficiaries. As part of the deal, Unisys expects to make a one-time, non-cash, pre-tax settlement charge of approximately $244m. The annuity purchase will be made by the pension trust meaning there will be no impact on Unisys cash position.…

UK retailer Co-op has insured the final tranche of its pension scheme liabilities in a £4bn ($5bn) deal with insurer Rothesay. The deal involves transferring almost 50,000 scheme members, made up of 17,655 pensioners and dependents and 31,896 deferred members and is the fourth deal between the two parties following three buy-in transactions in 2020. The pension scheme’s sponsor is the Co-operative Group and, in a press release, Rothesay said that no additional contribution from the employer was required as the fund was in surplus and illiquid assets in its investment portfolio were used to pay the buy-in premium. The…

UK pharmacy chain Boots has agreed a £4.8bn pension fund buy-in deal with Legal & General which covers all 53,000 retirees and deferred members of the scheme. According to a press release by the insurer, the transaction is the largest single deal by premium size in the UK, the most members taken on by Legal & General in a single deal. Boots’ decision to offload its pension scheme is part of a more than two decade-long pension de-risking process by the retailer. Its 2001 switch of its asset allocation from equities to bonds made it the first pension fund to deploy…

The MMC UK Pension Fund has completed a £2bn ($2.5bn) longevity swap, covering the liabilities of 14,500 pensioners, and deferred members. According to a press release announcing the move, the longevity swap is the second largest deal of its kind in the UK covering more deferred than active scheme members. The swap is insured via a Guernsey-based incorporated cell company Fission Gamma IC Limited, managed by March Captive Solutions Guernsey,. The swap was simultaneously reinsured by Munich Re. This is the second longevity swap deal which has been struck by the UK arm of the US metals distributor. In 2017…

Legal & General has signed a £500m ($610m) buy-in deal with the Deutsche Bank (UK) Pension Scheme, in a move which covers the benefits of around 2,000 retirees and deferred members. The pension fund is sponsored by a UK subsidiary of Deutsche Bank and this is the second buy-in deal it has agreed this year. In April it signed a £400 million contract with Aviva, which covered nearly 900 scheme members. Deutsche Bank also announced a £570m buy-in deal with Legal & General in February 2021, bringing its total value of buy-ins to £1.5bn over the last two and half…

According to the World Health Organisation, there are approximately 1.3 billion global users of tobacco. Each year, eight million die – a number which includes more than one million passive smokers. Governments globally are trying to reduce the number of people smoking but they are dealing with the issue in different ways.   The UK introduced a ‘swap to stop’ scheme in April that allows smokers to exchange their cigarettes for an electronic substitute. Health Minister Neil O’Brien heralded the initiative as a global first in a speech announcing its introduction as the UK looks to cut cigarette use to less…

The Rotork pension fund has agreed a £80m ($99m) buy-in deal with UK insurer Aviva, following a £20m cash contribution from its sponsor Rotork PLC.Bath-based industrial manufacturer Rotork has offloaded the liabilities of 406 pensioners and dependents from the Rotork Pension & Life Assurance Scheme.Actuarial consultants LCP was the trustee’s de-risking adviser, and lead adviser for the transaction, with additional advice given to the trustees by Barnett Waddingham and Gowling WLG.The transaction was made possible following the £20m cash contribution in June this year which saw the scheme go from a deficit of £8m in December 2022 to a surplus…

Clara Pensions has signed the UK’s first superfund pension deal after reaching an agreement with the trustees of the Sears Retail Pension Scheme.Under the agreement 9,600 members of Sears’ pension fund will be transferred to Clara Pensions after clearance was agreed by the UK’s Pensions Regulator (TPR). The transfer process is expected to start this month. The deal includes an additional £30m of ring-fenced funding to support the pension scheme in the absence of an ongoing employer covenant. The superfund concept was introduced in 2018 and Clara Pensions was the first entity to receive approval from TPR.Superfunds are analogous to insurance buyouts…