Shepherd and Wedderburn advises in £35m pensioner buy-in

Canada Life Limited has completed a £35m pensioner buy-in transaction for the A.G. Barr plc (2008) Pension and Life Assurance Scheme. This transaction is the third bulk annuity deal executed by Canada Life since their entry into the market during 2015. The lead advisor to the Trustees on the transaction was Hymans Robertson LLP, with Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP providing advice on legal aspects. The transaction was primarily funded with gilts, as the Trustees took advantage of good pricing to optimise their low risk assets.

Canada Life and A.G. Barr plc (2008) Pension and Life Assurance Scheme executed the £35m pension risk transfer deal at the beginning of May 2016, working together quickly to make good use of market opportunities. The deal covers over 50% of the Scheme’s total pensioner liability, focused on those who have recently retired.

Pension funds are moving towards a stepped approach to pension risk transfer, allowing them to take advantage of market opportunities over time and reduce the risks associated with a single transaction.

A spokesman for the Trustee of the A.G. Barr plc (2008) Pension and Life Assurance Scheme said: "The trustee is pleased to have taken another important step in our ongoing process to improve the level of security of all our members' benefits. This deal reduces risk to the pension scheme, providing increased certainty to our sponsoring company, and most importantly, increased security to our members.  We were expertly guided through this process by Hymans Robertson and Shepherd and Wedderburn. I also want to thank Canada Life for working closely with us and our advisers, developing a proposal that met our specific requirements and enabling a smooth process to transaction.”