Press releases

Legal & General completes £4.4 billion bulk annuity buy-in with British Airways

Legal & General Group Plc (“Legal & General”) today announces that it has completed a £4.4 billion buy-in for British Airways PLC’s pension scheme, Airways Pension Scheme (“APS”), covering nearly 22,000 pensioners. This is the largest ever bulk annuity policy arranged with a UK pension scheme and also included the conversion of existing longevity insurance into a bulk annuity.

13 Sep 2018


Press Release (PDF 148KB)

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As announced at the half year results, the UK pension risk transfer (“PRT”) market continues to demonstrate a high level of activity with Legal & General actively quoting on more than £20 billion, of which more than £7 billion were in exclusive negotiations at the time. Since then, Legal & General has completed £4.8 billion of UK PRT transactions, including the APS buy-in, and is now actively quoting on £27 billion of UK PRT deals. Additionally Legal & General has continued to show strong momentum in International PRT, completing £191 million of transactions since the end of June.

In aggregate, Legal & General has completed £6.0 billion of global pension de-risking transactions year to date (UK PRT: £5.3 billion, International PRT: £0.4 billion, Longevity Insurance: £0.3 billion). The financial metrics and Solvency II capital strain of these transactions are in line with previous levels reported by Legal & General.

Laura Mason, CEO Legal & General Retirement Institutional: "This transaction also included the conversion of existing longevity insurance to a bulk annuity, demonstrating Legal & General’s ability to deal with a complex situation and offer innovative solutions drawing on the broad experience and capabilities of the wider Legal & General Group."
Nigel Wilson, Chief Executive, Legal & General Group: "As we indicated at the half year results, the second half of 2018 is likely to be a record six months for our PRT business and we expect to announce further transactions in the next few months."