NatWest strikes £11bn deal to offload pension payments to Rothesay

(Sharecast News) - NatWest Group has struck what is thought to be the UK's biggest-ever deal to outsource pension payments to a specialist insurance company. According to Sky News, pension trustees at NatWest have offloaded a roughly £11bn chunk of its corporate pension scheme to Rothesay, the England cricket team's Test match sponsor.

The deal is a landmark in the accelerating trend for companies to insure their pension risks, with NatWest ranking among the UK's biggest pension scheme sponsors.

Its group retirement scheme has about £33.6bn in assets, while it had roughly 190,000 members at the end of September.

The latest deal was disclosed - without reference to Rothesay - in NatWest's third-quarter results statement published last month, but has not been publicly reported.

"In September 2024, the Trustee of the NatWest Group Pension Fund entered into a further buy-in transaction with a third-party insurer for some of the liabilities of the Main Section," the statement said.

Several sources familiar with the transactions told Sky on Tuesday that the counterparty was Rothesay, which declined to comment.

In a statement issued to Sky News, a spokesperson for the NatWest Group pension fund confirmed the deal, saying: "As part of its long-term strategy, the Trustee of the NatWest Group Pension Fund has recently insured around one-third of the Main Section with buy-in policies.

"The buy-in policies are Fund investments that further improve the security of member benefits by increasing protection against demographic and investment risks.

"As with other investment decisions there is no change to member benefits and members will continue to receive their benefits directly from the Fund."