Risk Reduction

Castings has agreed a £72m buy-in contract for its two defined benefit pension schemes with Aviva.

Multinational communication services giant WPP has completed a £250m buy-in for two of its pension schemes with Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) as the insurer celebrated a “healthy pipeline” of deals amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

Many key pension scheme risks fall outside the IRM framework and are therefore often left unmitigated. Matthew Giles looks at how to tackle these areas.

The fall in pricing of credit assets due to Covid-19 has made bulk annuities more affordable for schemes with significant gilt holdings, according to XPS Pensions.

While market conditions may have put a dent in your de-risking plans, there is still plenty of preparation you can do and opportunities to take advantage of, says Michael Abramson.

Another £1.2bn of defined benefit (DB) scheme liabilities were insured by Just Group last year, according to its preliminary full-year results.

After a year dominated by mega bulk annuity deals, K3 Advisory looks at how the Carter and Parker scheme made its £9.3m buy-in attractive to insurers.

Nimble footwork enables small schemes to compete with the big boys in the buyout market, says Stephanie Hawthorne.

Legal & General (L&G) completed 28 bulk annuity transactions with UK pension schemes over the course of 2019, its annual report reveals.

The Xylem UK Pension Plan has confirmed a £255m buy-in transaction with Rothesay Life in the insurer’s first deal of 2020.