Salvus Master Trust is to take over the £7m Complete Master Trust in the latest consolidation deal to hit the industry.
The agreement will see all of Complete’s 20 employers and 1,200 members transfer to Salvus, putting it in charge of more than £100m of assets for 46,000 members.
Complete Master Trust was launched in September 2014 with the backing of Charles Stanley.
The deal, which completes in May, is one of the first to be confirmed since the authorisation requirements for master trusts were announced. It follows the merger between The People’s Pension and Your Workplace Pension in early April, which involved the pension plans of 8,700 savers.
The new master trust regulations proposed by the Department of Work and Pensions last year will introduce tighter capital adequacy rules from October. As a result, smaller master trusts will need to consolidate to survive.
The decision to transfer to another master trust is currently subject to member consent, but the incoming regulations will scrap this requirement in a bid to speed up the consolidation process between master trusts.
Salvus, which plans to apply for authorisation status, aims to capitalise on this development.
Founder Steve Goddard explains that this dead will not be its last. “With master trust authorisation on the horizon in October this year, we’re likely to see increased amounts of consolidation in the next 12 months and we believe Salvus has the robust offering and infrastructure to support this,” he added.
