Overview
The pension risk transfer market continues to see robust volume through a variety of transaction types. Pensions & Investments' pension risk transfer database has captured almost 700 specific transactions since 2010 representing more than $600 billion.
Since 2017, the number of transactions has averaged around 60. Buy-in and buyout transactions represent the vast majority, but lump-sum payouts and longevity swaps continue to play a part in risk transfers. The total dollar volume in any given year is heavily influenced by mega transactions, such as General Motor's $29 billion buyout in 2012, IBM's $16 billion buyout in 2022 or AT&T's $8.1 billion buyout in 2023. The yearly average dollar volume in 2017-2023 was around $55 billion.
From 2010 to 2017, 95.8% were liftouts of certain plan participants. From 2018 through the first half of 2024, 20.5% involved terminations of the plan.
Transactions in P&I's database involved almost 4 million individuals. 100% of individuals were retirees in the early years of buy-ins and buyouts. However, over the past several years current employees and deferred participants have started to make up more than 5% of the individuals involved in insurance transactions.
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