Two pension funds sponsored by Ford Motor Company have completed buy-ins totalling £4.6bn (€5.3bn) with Legal & General (L&G), as part of one combined transaction, securing the benefits of more than 35,000 retirees across the funds.

This includes the Ford Hourly Paid Contributory Pension Fund and the Ford Salaried Contributory Pension Fund.

L&G flagged a seamless collaboration and engagement between the insurer, the funds’ trustees and their advisors for allowing the transaction to finalise in a short timeframe.

Aon was the lead transaction adviser and Mayer Brown the lead legal advisor for the funds’ trustees. Hogan Lovells also provided legal advice, while Aptia provided administration support to the trustees. Slaughter and May provided legal advice to L&G.

Ahead of the transaction, the schemes’ trustees prepared the pension funds’ investment strategies with Aon and the Ford in-house investment management team to align with L&G’s investment portfolios.

L&G said it provided a price lock linked directly to the funds’ assets to ensure price certainty while the contractual terms were finalised. It added that the trustees paid the premiums through in-specie asset transfers, which helped to minimise transaction costs.

This is the largest pension risk transfer transaction announced in the UK in 2025, and the second-largest buy-in by premium size of all time for L&G, which secured almost half of the 20 largest UK buy-ins and buyouts announced since 2007, securing more than £30bn across these transactions.

Jonathan Wood, chair of trustees, said that “having worked towards this for many years”, this de-risking milestone provides “even greater security for our members”.

“The outcome achieved is testament to the commitment and dedication shown over many years by the trustees and Ford to support the funds, as well as the skill and expertise of our advisers,” he added.

António Simões, chief executive officer of L&G, noted that the £4.6bn transaction puts the insurer firmly on track to achieve its pension risk transfer (PRT) growth targets.

“Our long-term relationship with Ford is a great example of the competitive edge that comes from the synergies between L&G’s businesses, and the ongoing value this creates for trustees, sponsors and pension scheme members,” he said.

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Pamela is IPE's UK correspondent. Before joining IPE in May 2023, she spent five years writing about the insurance industry. During her career so far she won awards for Most Promising Newcomer in 2020 and Best Investigative Article in 2022 from the British Insurance Brokers Association, and was also highly commended at the WTW Media Awards for Insurance Features Journalist of The Year.View full Profile

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