Harrods Pension Scheme Secures Buy-In Worth $635M

The Harrods Group Pension Plan has signed a u00a3400m ($635m) full scheme buy-in with insurer, Scottish Widows.

The deal which secures retirement benefits for roughly 1,900 pensioners and 2,100 deferred members and comes as rising interest rates impact on pension schemes funding levels has driven activity in the pension risk transfer market to record highs.

The Harrodu2019s trustee chair said that the deal was the culmination of a long-term strategy which has seen the scheme take a long term, low risk approach to investment risk.

The chair added that by moving to a full buy-in the Harrods Pension Scheme had de-risked its longevity exposure with this insurance transaction.

The Harrods deal marked a busy month for Scottish Widows, which has also inked a near $200m deal with the pension scheme of the UK arm of Dutch insurer, Aegon.

XPS acted as the lead transaction adviser, while legal advice was provided to the trustee provided by CMS. Scottish Widows was advised by DLA Piper.