ICI Pension Fund has completed a £900m (€1bn) buy-in with Legal & General (L&G) securing the benefits of over 7,000 retirees.

The announcement marks the 12th transaction since the fund entered into an umbrella agreement with Legal & General in 2014, which saw the fund insure £3.6bn of its liabilities.

To date, L&G has completed transactions totalling £7bn in aggregate with the scheme and covers around 70% of the fund’s total liabilities.

L&G said that its long-standing relationship and collaborative approach with the trustee ensured a “smooth and efficient” transaction to meet the fund’s de-risking objectives.

LCP and Allen & Overy advised the fund trustee on all 12 of its buy-ins with L&G. Macfarlanes provided legal advice to L&G.

Heath Mottram, chief executive officer of Pensions Secretariat Services Limited, said: “The trustee values its ongoing relationship with Legal & General as it continues its journey to secure the benefits of all of the members of the ICI Pension Fund.”

Andrew Kail, CEO of Legal & General Retirement Institutional, said the transaction falls “almost 10 years to the day” since the fund’s initial “ground-breaking” transaction in 2014 and highlights how “well advised pension schemes can achieve great results when they have a deep, collaborative, and trusted relationship with an insurer”.

He said: “We look forward to continuing to work closely with the fund to secure its members’ pension liabilities.”

Clive Wellsteed, partner at LCP, added that in a busy market dominated by full buy-ins, this pensioner-only transaction shows how a “well-prepared scheme with a de-risked investment strategy can successfully insure benefits over time to achieve its objectives”.

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