The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the sovereign wealth fund for the government of Abu Dhabi, is to acquire a 21.4% stake in pension insurance provider Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC).
ADIA will buy the stake from private equity firm J.C. Flowers &Co, which held the stake for the past 12 years and has been looking for a buyer for the the past months.
PIC specialises in taking over pension liabilities on behalf of UK firms through buy-in and buy-out deals.
Most recently, it completed a £200bn buy-in with Kingfisher’s defined benefit (DB) scheme. As of last year, PIC oversaw almost £26bn in investments and insured more than 150,000 scheme members.
Hamad Shahwan Aldhaheri, executive director of the Private Equities Department at ADIA, said: “This investment is a further demonstration of our ongoing strategy to seek out principal investments in market-leading businesses with strong management teams. PIC has proven its ability to respond to the growing trend for UK companies to de-risk their defined benefit pension obligations and, as such, has strengthened its position as the industry’s leading pension insurance provider.”
