Standard Life has signed a £1.2bn ($1.5bn) bulk purchase annuity deal (BPA) with UK bar and restaurant firm Mitchells & Butlers.
The BPA deal covers over 20,000 members of the Mitchells & Butlers pension plan, both deferred members and pensioners. The transaction was concluded in May and it now means that all members of both the Mitchells & Butlers Pension Plan, and the Mitchells & Butlers Executive Pension Plan are now fully insured.
In a press release announcing the deal, the chairman of the pension plan trustees said that the deal followed strong investment performance and as a result had been carried out several years ahead of schedule.
XPS Pensions Group acted as the lead advisers to the trustees, while legal advice was provided by Gowling WLG.
Mitchells & Butlers was established in 1888 and operates nearly 2000 units of the UK’s best known bar and restaurant chains including All Bar One and Toby Carvery.
This is the second large deal Standard Life has announced this month, following the $1.3bn transaction with fellow insurer, Chubb UK. A few weeks earlier the Scottish insurer completed a $100 deal with defunct insurer MGM.