Salvus Master Trust has boosted its assets to more than £100m (€113m) following its consolidation with the £7m Complete Master Trust.
The move, which will take effect from 1 May, will bring Complete’s 20 employers and more than 1,200 members under the auspices of Salvus. The parent master trust will have more than 46,000 members.
Earlier this year, new requirements were introduced by the UK’s Pensions Regulator for defined contribution (DC) master trust schemes to seek authorisation from 1 October 2018.
Master trusts have grown in importance in the UK pension system following the introduction of auto-enrolment for all employees. In effect, each master trust acts as an umbrella structure for many different occupational DC schemes, with each employer gaining its own division within the overall plan. As there is only one overall trustee board, responsibilities such as governance are ceded to the master arrangement.
Steve Goddard, founder of Salvus, which was launched by Goddard Perry Group in 2009 to provide occupational DC services to the Pension Protection Fund, said he expected further consolidation over the next 12 months.
“The plan [for Salvus] is to get up to £3bn-£5bn through offering an innovative charging structure,” he said. “But the drivers for consolidation are dictated more by the fact that the UK has announced that every master trust has to get authorisation status.”
Earlier in April The People’s Pension, the UK’s largest private sector master trust, announced the transfer of almost £20m – attached to 9,000 members and 70 employers – under its wider structure.
Launched in September 2014, the Complete Master Trust had been backed by Charles Stanley Financial Solutions.
Chris Halewood, chair of the trustees for the scheme, said: “Merging the scheme into the Salvus Master Trust gave us the opportunity to provide scheme members with a significant reduction in charges with little or no disruption to the ongoing administration of the scheme for participating employers.
“We are confident that the Salvus Master Trust has the size and scale needed within this market to provide a sustainable long-term solution for all concerned.”
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