Legal & General has completed a £930m full buy-in for members of the Tate & Lyle pension scheme.

The deal means that all 6,700 members of the DB scheme are now covered by Legal & General, following on from a buy-in transaction that took place in 2012 for £347m, which covered some 1,900 members and insured 43 per cent of the scheme’s pensioner liabilities.

“We never imagined only a couple of years ago that there would be such an opportunity on the horizon,” Law Debenture Pension Trust Corporation managing director and chair of the Tate & Lyle pension scheme trustee board, Michael Chatterton said. “This is great news for scheme members.”

Imran Nawaz, the CFO at Tate & Lyle, praised the scheme’s trustees for their management of the scheme, which he said has allowed the company to offload its £1.2bn of pension liabilities to Legal & General.

“We have supported the scheme over many decades and made significant cash contributions to remedy a deficit that has existed between the Scheme’s assets and liabilities,” he said.

“That funding, combined with excellent stewardship by the scheme’s trustees, has resulted in a positive situation whereby the scheme can now be de-risked for the benefit of members and the company.”

Tate & Lyle has been advised by LCP on its de-risking plan and Clive Wellsteed, a partner at the consultancy, explained that the full buy-in had arrived “well ahead of schedule”.

“We worked closely with the trustees and company to navigate a hugely busy market and lock in the position with Legal & General,” he said.

“It is transactions like this that are providing unstoppable momentum in the buy-in and buy-out market with over £30bn of deals since this time last year.

"We expect a flurry of transactions to follow in Tate & Lyle’s footsteps over the next few months.”

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