Barloworld completes £54m buy-in with Scottish Widows
Scottish Widows has secured its second bulk annuity deal with a £54m buy-in for Barloworld UK Pension Scheme after the insurer entered the market last year.
The buy-in covered a tranche of the scheme's total £600m pensioner liabilities in continuation with its de-risking strategy following a previous buy-in completed with an undisclosed insurer in 2014.
The trustees and their adviser KPMG monitored pricing at the start of 2016 to determine when best to proceed with the second buy-in.
Barloworld UK Pension Scheme chairman of trustees Andrew Bannister said: "This buy-in is part of our long-term strategy to de-risk our pensioner liabilities. I am very pleased that we have been able to complete this arrangement with Scottish Widows following a competitive process run by KPMG."
KPMG pension insurance team senior consultant James Staveley-Wadham said: "Having already advised the trustees on their previous pensioner buy-in, KPMG and the trustees worked together to identify and execute a further insurance transaction."
"As the client has already transacted, the market viewed this really positively and we were able to get six providers quoting - great for competitive tensioning. This compares to the position a couple of years ago where the market thought the scheme would end up with the existing insurer, so the number of providers willing to quote reduced dramatically.
He added the experience of the first buy-in was put to good use with the trustees and KPMG able to agree contractual terms and execute quickly.
Scottish Widows head of origination and structuring, bulk annuities Mike Edwards said: "The trustees' proactivity, along with the preparatory work they had done with their advisers, meant they were able to conclude the transaction in a shortened timescale."
The transaction is the insurer's second bulk annuity deal after entering its first in November 2015 for £400m liabilities of the Wiggins Teape Pension Scheme.
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