Prudential Financial has closed a pension risk transfer (PRT) deal with Shell USA, which sees $4.9bn worth of pension obligations transfer to the insurer.
The deal covers roughly 21,500 of the oil and gas firm’s US pensioners and Prudential subsidiary The Prudential Insurance Company of America will start administering payments on 15 May 2024.
In a press release announcing the move, Prudential said following the signing of the deal the firm had now completed seven of the ten largest PRT deals struck in the US.
Deals by Prudential include the 2022 $16bn PRT with IBM and the firm has been active in the market for some time, having agreed deals with high profile US corporates General Motors and Verizon in 2012.
According to a recent filing with the US Department of Labor, the Shell USA pension plan had 26,536 active participants at the end of the 2022 and 9,299 retirees.
Total assets under management at that time stood at $14.5bn.
Experts predicted that 2024 would be a robust year for the US PRT market and the Shell deal is the first major transaction to be reported.