Fortune 500 Company sponsored pension scheme secures £150m whole scheme buy-in

A UK pension scheme (“the Scheme”) that is sponsored by one of the largest Fortune 500 Companies has completed a £150m full scheme buy-in. This transaction fully insures the benefits for all of the Scheme’s 400 pensioner and deferred members and is expected to be converted to buy-out in the short term.

20-20 Trustees are the sole trustee for the Scheme and they engaged Hymans Robertson to act as lead transaction adviser, with legal advice provided by Gowling WLG and Aon providing the Scheme Actuary and investment advisor roles and XPS the Scheme administrator.

20-20 Trustees team for this account were led by Kerry McDermott, Associate Director and Stuart Travers, Trustee Director. Kerry and Stuart commented:

“As the sole trustee, our key focus for the last few years has been to prepare for this transaction and ensure that the Scheme’s position was highly attractive to the insurance market. We are therefore delighted to have achieved our goal of fully insuring the benefits for all the Scheme members of our client. Thanks to the collaborative working between all our advisers, and Hymans Robertson’s expert leadership and insights into the bulk annuity market, we were able to carefully time our market approach which resulted in a highly competitive broking process. We look forward to continuing to work together with the insurer and all the Scheme advisers as we look to convert to a buy-out and secure individual insurance policies for all of our members.”

James Mullins, Head of Risk Transfer Solutions at Hymans Robertson and lead adviser on the transaction added:

“We are delighted to have helped the Trustee secure this buy-in and to fully insure the Scheme’s risks. We adapted our processes to reflect the fact that an experienced sole trustee is able to make quick decisions and progress all workstreams with excellent efficiency. In particular, the excellent stewardship and comprehensive preparation by the 20-20 Trustees team meant that we were able to accelerate the planned timescales to capture a pricing opportunity, which followed the quieter period for buy-ins in the first half of 2021. The end result was a highly competitive broking process and an attractive offer from the insurer, which meant that a full Scheme buy-in could be completed at no additional cost to the sponsor.”

Christopher Stiles, partner at Gowling WLG commented:

"It was a pleasure for us to work with 20-20 Trustees and the Hymans Robertson team to deliver an excellent result for the sponsor and the members of the scheme. The project was delivered on very tight timescales and couldn't have been done without the seamless collaboration of all parties, working together to take swift advantage of the pricing opportunity which emerged from a resurgent bulk annuity market in the second half of 2021."