Truell returns with pension product

Duke Street Capital founder Edmund Truell’s new company the Pension Insurance Corporation may come to the rescue of buyout firms looking at deals with mature pension fund issues.

Emdund Truell, founder of private equity firm Duke Street Capital, has launched the Pension Insurance Corporation with backing from Christopher Flowers, a US financial services buyout specialist, and a £1 billion fund (€1.5 billion; $1.9 billion) to target mature pension fund liabilities.

Truell won cautious support from the buyout industry, which has tended to avoid deals with companies facing onerous pension fund liabilities.

Philip Bassett, a partner at Europe’s largest buyout firm Permira, said: “[Truell’s firm] could be useful in helping buyout groups do deals where pension funds are an issue, but the firms will need to factor in the cost.”

Truell intends to put in place reinsurance operations which will relieve pension fund sponsors of the burden of supporting large pension schemes.
Apart from Flowers, Truell has equity backing from Swiss Re, ABN AMRO, Coller Capital, HBOS, US hedge fund Cycladic, Royal Bank of Scotland and Sampo Life.

The chief executive of his central reinsurance operation is John Fitzpatrick, formerly Swiss Re’s chief financial office. Tracy Blackwell and Susan Noble, who both used to work for Goldman Sachs Asset Management, are head of liability and risk management and asset allocation respectively.

Truell’s board of directors is chaired by Sir Mark Weinberg. Other directors include Sir Martin Jacomb, former chief executive of the Prudential, Bob Scott, former chief executive of Aviva, Graham Cooper, founder of actuarial firm New Bridge Street, Ravi Sinha, head of Europe at Christopher Flowers’ JC Flowers operation; John Loveless, head of trust and private banking at SG Hambros and Truell’s brother Danny, chief investment officer at Wellcome Trust.