One of Norway's richest families is buying a stake in a British provider of auto-enrolment pensions, according to reports.
According to Sky News, the Stensrud family, which owns the Norwegian asset manager Skagen, has agreed to invest millions of pounds in Smart Pension, which launched two years ago.
Smart Pension is a fintech firm, which specialises in auto enrolment for small and micro companies. On 28 July 2016 LGIM took a minority stake in the digital pension platform, part of a move by LGIM to invest in high-achieving, innovative technology that has a positive impact on the wider UK economy.
The Stensrud family's participation in Smart Pension's £15m Series B funding round is expected to be announced on today (5 June).
It will take the total amount of capital invested in the company since it was set up to £25m, and will value it at £65m, according to insiders.
Co-founded in 2014 by a former head of Lloyds Banking Group's wealth unit and a technology entrepreneur, Smart Pension opened for business in 2015.
Under the new rules, every employer must auto-enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme if they are aged a least 22, earn more than £10,000 and work in the UK.
Smart Pension's service is free to employers, while it charges individual employees a fee worth 0.75% of their pension contributions.
Andrew Evans, Smart Pension's co-founder and chief executive, said this weekend: "Like the government provider, Nest, we 100% guarantee to accept all employers and employees.
The latest round of funding will enable Smart Pension to accelerate the introduction of faster technology, which it believes will drive demand from larger employees dissatisfied with their existing pension scheme administrators.
The fundraising was arranged by Ashcombe Advisers, a London-based corporate finance firm.
