Trio of firms advise on L&G's £4.6bn pension buy-in with Ford

Slaughters, Mayer Brown and Hogan Lovells have advised on the £4.6 billion pension buy-in deal between Legal & General and car maker Ford, marking the UK’s largest pension risk transfer (PRT) transaction announced this year.

The deal, which secures the savings of more than 35,000 retirees across two of Ford’s pension funds, represents L&G’s second-largest buy-in of all time by premium size - lagging only its £4.8 billion transaction with Boots in 2023.

The PRT boom

The move adds to a booming pensions de-risking market, as companies look to offload difficult to manage defined benefit (DB) schemes to insurers.

It comes after Simmons moved to hire one of the UK’s top PRT specialists, DLA Piper’s Amrit McLean, just last week - and follows PIC’s £4.3 billion buy-in of Rolls Royce’s pension scheme in August, which enlisted firms including Hogan Lovells, Linklaters and Addleshaw Goddard.

On the investor side, Apollo-backed Athora agreed to buy L&G rival PIC in July for £5.7 billion - in a deal led by Sidley and Slaughters. That was followed shortly afterwards by A&O Shearman-advised Brookfield’s £2.5 billion purchase of life insurer Just Group, which was also repped by Slaughters.

Advising

Mayer Brown advised the trustees of Ford’s two pension funds, led by insurance partner Tom MacAulay with assistance from pensions partner and client relationship partner Andrew Block.

Hogan Lovells acted for both Ford (as corporate sponsor of the pension funds) and the pension fund trustees on benefit aspects of the deal, led by Edward Brown with support from Jonathan Russell and Edward Steward.

Slaughter and May advised Legal & General, led by Thomas Peacock and Chris Sharpe.