CVC and Standard Life announce strategic partnership

The transaction represents another important step for CVC’s Credit & Insurance strategy, expanding the firm’s insurance asset management platform while creating additional opportunities to deploy its growing credit capabilities on behalf of its insurance clients.

CVC Capital Partners (AEX: CVC) has announced a strategic joint venture with Standard Life (FTSE: SDLF), a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement savings and income, to establish a new Pension Risk Transfer (“PRT”) platform, focused on large UK corporate pension schemes. The venture, backed by a consortium including Prudential Financial Inc, and other long-term blue-chip institutional investors, will have combined initial capital commitments of up to £2 billion, to be drawn over time to support transactions.

CVC will provide Standard Life’s PRT business with access to a broad range of private market investment opportunities, including Asset Backed Lending, Structured Credit, Real Estate Credit, Infra Credit, Direct Lending, Opportunistic, and Liquid Credit to support insurers’ long-term liability management objectives. 

Standard Life will contribute its market-leading PRT capabilities, including its established origination and transaction structuring platform, regulatory infrastructure and strong relationships across the UK pensions ecosystem, and CVC will make a capital commitment of £400 million to be drawn over multiple years. 

Together with CVC’s recent partnership with AIG and the acquisition of CVC Marathon, the partnership with Standard Life demonstrates the rapid development of CVC’s Credit & Insurance strategy, which now manages over €60 billion of Fee Paying AUM, and can serve leading global insurers at scale, using the asset-light partnership model.

The UK pension risk transfer market remains one of the largest and most attractive insurance markets globally, with approximately £1.2 trillion of defined benefit pension liabilities yet to transfer to insurers. The new platform will focus on serving larger pension schemes and supporting corporate sponsors seeking to de-risk legacy pension obligations.

Rob Lucas, CEO at CVC, said: “We are delighted to partner with Standard Life, Prudential and other leading blue-chip investors to establish a new partnership in the pensions risk transfer sector. This investment brings together long-term capital alongside one of the UK’s leading insurers to create a scalable platform for future growth. Building on recent strategic initiatives, including our partnership with AIG, this transaction further strengthens CVC’s position as a trusted partner to leading global insurers. We are excited about the opportunities this partnership will create.”

Peter Rutland, President, CVC, said: “This partnership builds on CVC’s experience in the attractive UK PRT market with a new, long-term capital commitment, whilst leveraging Standard Life’s track record and established proposition with trustees. The partnership is ideally suited to CVC’s insurance asset management franchise and credit origination capabilities. We look forward to working in close collaboration with Standard Life and our consortium partners in the years ahead.”

Andy Briggs, Group CEO, Standard Life, said: “Today’s announcement expands Standard Life’s PRT business in partnership with internationally recognised financial institutions, accelerating our vision to become the UK’s leading retirement savings and income business. Our partners’ specialist and best-in-class private markets asset management capabilities, including those of CVC, are highly complementary with Standard Life’s trusted brand and comprehensive PRT proposition. This will enable the partnership to offer trustees and sponsors for the UK’s largest pension schemes a truly compelling alternative to secure the retirements of their members across the UK.        

The transaction is expected to close following receipt of customary regulatory approvals and satisfaction of closing conditions.