Pinsent Masons advises Canada Life on the acquisition of £875M annuity business from Equitable Life

The transaction, announced by the parties on 3 March 2015, involves the reassurance of the liabilities with effect from 1 January 2015 and will be followed by a transfer of the annuity policies by way of a court-approved insurance business transfer under Part VII of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

The Pinsent Masons multi-disciplinary team advising Canada Life was led by Insurance partner Bruno Geiringer, with assistance principally from John Christian (Partner, Tax), Tony Anderson (Partner, Banking), Raj Sharma (Partner, Pensions), Jon Fisher (Partner, Employment), Samantha Livesey (Partner, Commercial) and Rosie Macadie (Solicitor, Commercial).

Commenting on the transaction, Bruno Geiringer said:

“It is a pleasure to work with the Canada Life project team and the in-house lawyers, led by Head of Legal Kelvan Swinnerton and Melissa Catalano from the parent company in Toronto.  We are delighted to be able to assist Canada Life execute this deal which further strengthens its market leading position as a provider of competitive annuity products.  We anticipate there will be more acquisitions of non-core annuity businesses in the UK in light of the fall in sales of individually underwritten annuities following the Chancellor’s pensions reforms.”