Rothesay agrees to £236m full scheme buy in for Signet
We are so pleased to have delivered this £236m full scheme buy-in of the Signet Group Pension Scheme with Rothesay.
As Chair of Trustees LawDeb’s Alan Baker worked closely with the Scheme Sponsor and advisors including Mercer and Sacker & Partners to bring members this security.
At LawDeb our goal is deliver value and security to pension scheme members. We are therefore delighted to have worked with our sponsoring employer to secure the pension benefits for all our members with Rothesay. As a purpose-built insurer, Rothesay is an attractive partner for us to ensure our obligations are met and pension benefits provided in full. This is a great outcome for our members and has resulted from a really positive and successful collaboration between all those involved.
Alan Baker, Chair of the Trustee representing LawDeb
The Sponsor, Signet Group Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Signet Jewelers Limited, a Bermuda-based company that is the world's largest retailer of diamond jewellery and owns H. Samuel and Ernest Jones in the UK. As a full scheme buy-in, the transaction secures the defined benefit liabilities for the entire Scheme, including 825 deferred members and 1,084 pensioners in payment, who will become direct policyholders with Rothesay on completion of the intended buy-out of the Scheme in due course.
The lead broker on the transaction was Mercer, acting for the Scheme. Legal advice was provided to the Scheme by Sackers and to Rothesay by Gowling WLG.
“The transition from quotation to signing in such an efficient time frame is a testament to the ambition, organisation and dynamism of the Scheme Trustees and its advisers. In a busy market our sophisticated risk and pricing systems allow us to transact at speed and offer schemes and sponsors the certainty they need to protect their members’ pensions.”
Tom Seecharan, Business Development at Rothesay
“We worked closely with the Scheme and trustee to ensure we were ready to transact when the Scheme funding level and market conditions were favourable. In this case, support from the sponsoring employer, combined with the co-operation between parties, ensured the process was completed efficiently, achieving long-term security for all members.”
David Ellis from Mercer
