PensionsFeb 6 2019

Just completes £158m pension buy-in

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Just completes £158m pension buy-in

Just has completed a £158m buy-in deal with the Wyeth Group Pension and Life Assurance Scheme.

The transaction, which was announced today (February 6), involved 1,200 clients.

Rob Mechem, head of DB business development at Just Group, said: "This is a well-funded scheme with a trustee board that was fully engaged in the details of every aspect of the process and was very well-prepared in terms of data cleansing and benefit specification.

"To ensure they had found the right home for the members’ benefits the trustees were very thorough and even undertook a site visit to review our administration capabilities."

Actively supported by the sponsor, Pfizer, the transaction forms part of the scheme’s trustees' work to de-risk the scheme’s liabilities.

Debbie Berney, trustee of the Wyeth Group Pension and Life Assurance Scheme, added: "We welcome this transaction as a big step forward in ensuring the scheme is able to meet the full costs of its future pension payments to all members and look forward to examining other de-risking opportunities in the future."

Commenting on the deal, Mark Ireland, chartered financial adviser for Hitchin-based Lyndhurst Financial Management, said: "When the excitement brought about by pension freedoms led to an almost complete switch around from annuities to drawdown as the retirement income of choice it was hard to imagine any change in tack for advisers or consumers; the draw of a flexible and controllable retirement income proving too attractive for many, with the importance of secure income bases being at best overlooked or at worst ignored in favour of a fully invested post retirement plan.

"The continued emergence of Just as a specialist retirement provider, maybe coinciding with a tightening of focus around the suitability of DB transfers, is for me a welcome one.

"The decision of the trustees of the Wyeth Group Pension and Life Assurance Scheme is a clear endorsement of their faith in Just Group as a provider and one which endorses my view of them as a company too."

aamina.zafar@ft.com