The Chamber of Shipping Retirement Benefits Plan has extended its £40m buy-in deal with Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) to cover a further £9m of liabilities.
The scheme first insured its pensioner liabilities with PIC in January, before extending the cover to deferred members of the plan, who represent about 20% of the scheme liabilities. The extra cover means the trustees can now proceed to a full buyout.
UK Chamber of Shipping chief financial officer Richard Barker said: “The trustee, the sponsor and PIC engaged in further discussions after the initial buy-in arrangement. We were pleased and impressed with their arrangements for the pensioners and so they were a natural home to insure the rest of the plan once the trustee board and the employers were able to agree additional funding to move to buyout.”
PIC co-head of business origination Jay Shah added: “This represents an increasing trend where our clients, having insured some liabilities with us, ask us to look at securing further liabilities either for the same scheme or other schemes with the same sponsor. As the de-risking market continues to develop, we expect this trend to pick up.”
The trustees were advised by Wragge & Co and KPMG.
KPMG director Robert Bass said: “This transaction, which substantially completes the plan’s risk reduction journey, was not envisaged a few months ago. The ability of all parties to move quickly, however, ensured that the trustee was able to secure the favourable terms offered by PIC inside seven weeks.”
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