Lane Clark & Peacock advises on Aggregate Industries pension funds' £300m pensions risk transfer (09/03/2010)

Aggregate Industries Limited (“the Company”) today announces that its two largest pension schemes have entered into insurance transactions to transfer risk to Pension Insurance Corporation (“PIC”), a leading provider of risk management solutions to defined benefit pension funds.
The two transactions are as follows:

1. A £210m insurance policy purchased by the Aggregate Industries Pension Plan to meet all future payments for pensions in payment as at 30th April 2009.

2. A £95m insurance policy purchased by the Foster Yeoman Retirement Plan 2000 to insure the benefits for all members. It is expected that in due course the Plan will be wound up removing any further obligation on the Company.

Lane Clark & Peacock LLP acted as lead adviser to the Company and the Trustees of the two pension schemes on the transactions.

Michael Berg, Partner at Lane Clark & Peacock LLP, said:

“We are delighted to have advised Aggregate Industries and the Trustees of both pension schemes and helped them achieve a fundamental reduction in the levels of pension risk.

Setting up a framework for monitoring de-risking opportunities allowed the schemes to move quickly once market conditions had improved, and to lock in to favourable pricing.

We are working with a number of pension schemes and companies to explore de-risking transactions and expect 2010 to be a very successful year for the pensions risk transfer market.”