Blake Morgan completes transfer of firm’s defined benefits pension fund to Aviva

Blake Morgan has completed the transfer of the law firm’s defined benefits pension scheme – the Blake Lapthorn Pension Fund – to leading insurer Aviva, who also manage the firm’s defined contribution scheme for current employees.

The £5.7m full scheme buy-out secures all benefits for the fund’s 52 members which comprises 30 deferred members and 22 pensioner members. The scheme was closed to new members in 2001.

This was the first transaction to be carried out using Aviva’s ‘Fast Track’ feature which meant it was completed in a much shorter time frame than is usually the case for transactions of this nature. The fund was selected by Aviva to be to be part of the pilot as so much work had been done to get the scheme ready to complete a transaction.

Adrian Lamb, a member of the firm’s pension team, headed up by Ron Burgess, acted as Secretary to the Trustees of the scheme throughout the process, a role he had held for a number of years already. Adrian, and all the other members of the pension team, already had significant experience in dealing with similar transactions with clients.

The team is well regarded in the industry – it provides expert advice across multiple sectors in relation to private and public sector pension schemes including on buy-out and buy-in projects, working with clients including corporate businesses, government bodies, trustees, charities and not-for-profit organisations.

The Trustees of the pension scheme received advice throughout the process from Broadstone, who were instrumental in both helping the trustees with the initial selection process and with moving it through to completion.

Mike Wilson, managing partner at Blake Morgan, said: