Reuters agrees £625m buy-in with Canada Life

Reuters has agreed a £625m full pensioner buy-in with Canada Life for the Reuters Pension Fund, which covers the majority of the pensioner liabilities in the £2.2bn fund.

The transaction is the largest so far by Canada Life, and is the first in a framework of buy-in transactions for the scheme.

Aon advised the scheme throughout the transaction, which was completed by Aon’s Compass platform. This enabled the scheme to move quickly at a time when pricing was attractive and, given the significant economic benefit, allowed it to complete a larger transaction than originally envisaged. Sackers provided legal advice throughout the process, while Redington advised on the investment implications.

Reuters Pension Fund chair of the trustees, Greg Meekings, said the transaction has led to a “major improvement” to the security of our members' pensions by taking a significant amount of risk out of the scheme.

“We are grateful for the excellent advisory support provided by Aon, Sackers and Redington to work collaboratively and complete this transaction in such a short timescale. I would also like to acknowledge the positive sponsor support from Blackstone and Thomson Reuters,” he added.

Canada Life executive director, Richard Priestly, added: "This is Canada Life’s largest bulk buy-in transaction to date and follows a pleasing run of transactions over recent weeks. We worked closely with the team at Aon to effectively deliver a transaction with attractive pricing during our busiest period of the year. The magnitude of this deal reflects our strategy to specifically target transactions that meet our appetite for longevity risk.”

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