CVC and Standard Life launch UK pension risk transfer platform with up to £2bn in commitments

Standard Life will commit £500m from its yearly excess cash generation, while the balance of up to £1.5bn will come from a consortium that includes Prudential Financial, Goldman Sachs and Japanese insurance group MS&AD Insurance Group.

CVC will make a capital commitment of £400m, drawn over several years, and will open its private markets platform to Standard Life’s PRT business. That access spans asset-backed lending, structured credit, real estate credit, infrastructure credit, direct lending, opportunistic strategies, and liquid credit, all designed to support insurers’ long-term liability management.

Standard Life, which focuses entirely on retirement savings and income, will contribute its established origination and transaction structuring platform, its regulatory infrastructure, and its relationships across the UK pensions ecosystem. The insurer, formerly Phoenix Group, completed its rebrand to Standard Life in March and ranks among the country’s leading bulk annuity writers.

The partnership extends a rapid build-out of CVC’s Credit & Insurance strategy, which now manages more than €60bn ($70bn) of fee-paying assets. It follows the firm’s $3.5bn strategic partnership with AIG, announced in January, and its acquisition of Marathon Asset Management, both of which anchored CVC’s push to serve global insurers through an asset-light model.

“We are delighted to partner with Standard Life, Prudential and other leading blue-chip investors to establish a new partnership in the pensions risk transfer sector,” said Rob Lucas, CEO at CVC. “This investment brings together long-term capital alongside one of the UK’s leading insurers to create a scalable platform for future growth. Building on recent strategic initiatives, including our partnership with AIG, this transaction further strengthens CVC’s position as a trusted partner to leading global insurers.”

Roughly £1.2tn of defined benefit pension liabilities have yet to transfer to insurers in the UK, and the new platform will concentrate on larger schemes whose corporate sponsors want to de-risk legacy obligations.

Standard Life Group CEO Andy Briggs said the tie-up would “enable the partnership to offer trustees and sponsors for the UK’s largest pension schemes a truly compelling alternative to secure the retirements of their members across the UK.”

The transaction is expected to close following customary regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of closing conditions.