Deutsche Bank Pension Scheme has completed a £1.1bn (€1.3bn) full buy-in deal with Legal & General (L&G), securing the benefits of around 4,000 members.
This is the scheme’s third buy-in with L&G following a £570m buy-in announced in 2021 and a £500m buy-in in 2023, bringing the total of insured liabilities with L&G to £2.1bn.
The scheme benefitted from a previous umbrella agreement with L&G, which ensured a smooth agreement of commercial terms. It has successfully implemented a phased buy-in strategy over the last four years to fully insure all accrued benefits, with the facility to accommodate new benefits for the 250 active employee members as they accrue additional service.
LCP was the lead transaction adviser to the scheme’s trustee, while transaction legal advice was provided to the trustee by CMS. DLA Piper UK provided legal advice to L&G.
Michael Wrobel, chair of the trustee board of the defined benefit UK pension scheme, said: “We are delighted to have completed this full buy-in of the scheme’s liabilities with Legal & General to further improve the security of members’ benefits.”
Wrobel added that the scheme has reached its long-term target significantly ahead of the plan set in 2018 and the existing relationship with L&G has been “fundamental” in helping the scheme achieve this, allowing the scheme to “move quickly to lock in attractive pricing for this and previous transactions”.
Jeremy Sowden, head of global pension and benefits at Deutsche Bank AG, added that the latest transaction means that all accrued benefits across Deutsche Bank’s two UK schemes have now been insured removing over £3bn of pension risk.
He said: “This is an excellent result for the members, the trustee and the bank. Our collaborative working relationship with the trustee and its advisers has been key to the successful and efficient implementation of the plan. The bank and trustee took the opportunity presented by market conditions to fully insure accrued liabilities much earlier than previously planned and the resulting successful transaction represents an important milestone in our global strategy to manage defined benefit scheme risk.”
Andrew Kail, chief executive officer of institutional retirement at L&G, said: “As a long-standing client of both our institutional retirement and asset management division, we are pleased to mark the completion of the DB (UK) pension scheme’s de-risking journey, securing its remaining members’ benefits.”
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