News in brief 21 September

Sal Pension Scheme and Royal Insurance Group Pension Scheme have uploaded their Brandywine holdings onto the AMX marketplace. The $750m investment brings AMX’s total assets under management to over $6bn, while the on boarding of Brandywine Global Sovereign Credit Fund marks their first fixed income offering. According to AMX, there are now 40 pension fund clients using the platform and it has on boarded five new managers in Q3 2018 alone.

DP Pensions has launched the Premier Trust Single Investment SIPP, in response to the growing number of advisers using them for their clients. The Premier Trust Single Investment SIPP will compliment DP Pensions’ existing product range and offers a lower cost option for advisers and their clients. The SIPP will be able to hold the plan bank account and one investment account with a panel investment manager. DP Pensions has over 40 investment managers on the panel. If the desired investment manager is not currently on the panel they will look to add it providing it meets the required due diligence.

Legal & General has announced that it has completed a £285m bulk annuity transaction with a non-disclosed Fortune 500 multinational firm, covering around 1,100 members based in the UK. The transaction was structured to allow the UK trustees to lock into commercial terms for their full scheme liabilities of around £300 million upfront, but with only around £250m insured initially. At that time, around 100 deferred members of the scheme were still in the process of deciding whether to transfer their benefits out of the scheme via an ongoing Enhanced Transfer Value (ETV) exercise. Within a month of the initial transaction, the trustees confirmed to Legal & General which of the 100 members had not left the scheme and they were then subsequently insured in a follow-on transaction.

The Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA), has announced the launch of its eAdmin group. Set to publish their initial findings in early 2019, the group will explore how schemes, trustees, regulators and administration providers can optimise the use of technology to improve overall service. Sponsored by Girish Menezes, board director at PASA and head of administration at Premier Pensions and overseen by The Pensions Regulator, the members of the group are: Chris Connelly – Equiniti (Knowledge Partner and Working Group Member), Andy Gibbons – Coal Pension Trustees (Working Group Member), Michael Mann – Individual member (Working Group Member), Girish Menezes – PASA (Board Sponsor and Chair), Louise Spicer – The Pensions Regulator – (Observer), Michael Watkins – SMART Pensions (Working Group Member).

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