Slaughter and May advised Legal & General Assurance Society Limited (“Legal & General”) on its £4.8 billion full buy-in with the Boots Pension Scheme (“the Scheme”).
The buy-in secures the benefits of all 53,000 retirees and deferred members of the Scheme, making it the UK’s largest single transaction of its kind by premium size and, for L&G, the largest single transaction by number of members.
This transaction represents an innovative step forward in DB pension de-risking by providing a combined investment and insurance solution for the Scheme’s asset holdings, allowing the Scheme to achieve the certainty of a transaction whilst also maximising value by transferring its assets (or the associated sale proceeds) to Legal & General.
Throughout the course of the transaction, Slaughter and May worked closely with Legal & General’s Legal and Business teams as well as other advisers to Legal & General.