Smiths Industries Pension Scheme, London, entered into a £254 million ($309.5 million) buy-in with Pension Insurance Corp.
The pension fund had £2.2 billion in assets as of July 31, said the latest annual report of the sponsoring employer, global technology business Smiths Group PLC.
“Today's agreement is a further material step toward the derisking of Smiths Group's pensions funding obligations,” said Chris O'Shea, chief financial officer at Smiths, in a statement on its website. “As part of our overall approach to derisking, today's agreement means that more than 25% of the company's total U.K. pension assets are now invested in buy-in policies that provide an effective hedge against the impact of changes in inflation, interest rates and mortality assumptions for the related liabilities.”
He added that the sponsoring employer will continue to work with the trustee of the pension fund “to consider further opportunities to derisk the scheme.”
Aon Hewitt was lead adviser to the trustee.
The plan has entered into several buy-ins. Smiths Group has previously insured £170 million of liabilities of another pension fund with Pension Insurance Corp. Smiths Group also completed a $527 million buyout deal for its U.S. funded retirement plans in August 2015, transferring obligations to Voya Retirement Insurance and Annuity Co
