The TI Group Pension Scheme has completed its second buy-in with Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) following a £130m deal.
This follows a £170m de-risking deal with PIC in 2013, and means that £1bn of TI’s pension liabilities have been insured since 2008.
The buy-in is the latest of a series of similar deals that PIC has worked on. In October it completed a £250m buy-in with technology group Smiths, which is also the TI Group Pension Scheme’s sponsor. More recently, it led a £100m buy-in of the Alcatel-Lucent pension scheme and a £140m deal involving ICI Specialty Chemicals Pension Fund back in November.
Trustee chairman Chris Surch said this is the second buy-in with PIC as part of TI’s long-term de-risking strategy.
“We have made considerable strides to completely de-risk the scheme and this remains our long-term aim,” he added. “Once again our in-house team, our advisers and PIC have been very proactive in helping us achieve our aims.”
PIC’s head of business development, Mitul Magudia, said this scheme was in the vanguard of those completing pensioner buy-ins, undertaking its first transaction in March 2008.
“Since then it has progressively de-risked approximately £1bn of liabilities with a variety of insurers, including PIC,” he added.
“We have developed a good relationship with the trustee and are pleased to have been able to help further de-risk the scheme. PIC has had a very busy start to 2017 and we expect progressive pensioner buy-ins of this nature and size to become more widespread.”
The trustee was advised by Aon Hewitt, led by partner Paul Belok. He said: “The trustee has led the way in recognising the benefits of using a tranche-based approach by carrying out a series of buy-ins over time, which has allowed the scheme to take advantage of pricing opportunities as they have arisen during the de-risking phase.”
