UK – Another new company has been launched aiming to buy out final salary pension funds, according to a news report.

The Times reported that Edmund Truell, the former chairman of private equity firm Duke Street Capital, has raised more than £400m (€580m) for his newly named Pension Insurance Corporation.

The paper said the new operation, which follows the launch of Paternoster and Synesis, recently received authorization from the Financial Services Authority. Truell’s name regularly comes up in reports about this burgeoning sector.

The Times also said that Truell was expected to be joined by his brother Danny, the former Goldman Sachs Asset Management managing director who’s chief investment officer of the Wellcome Trust.

Truell has attracted leading financial figures such as Lord Rothschild and Sir Nicholas Montague as non-executive directors, the report added.

Former Prudential UK chief executive Mark Wood’s Paternoster has hired names such as Sir Howard Davies and Ron Sandler for board roles.

According to entrepreneur Michael Hyman of CIB Financial Engineering, the new market for buying out schemes “has already taken off”.

Speaking at the 2006 NAPF annual conference and exhibition in London, Hyman told delegates: “It’s on its way. It’s starting to happen.”

Wood told delegates that the drivers of this rapid market growth included pressures on company directors such as regulatory intervention, increased disclosure obligations, pressures on equity valuations, improving longevity and increasing deficits.

Meanwhile, pension trustees are experiencing pressure from employees and unions, securing pension promises and concern regarding ‘unsecured creditor’ status.