Utmost aims to reach 5% BPA market share under new CEO
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A new entrant to the bulk annuity market, Utmost Life and Pensions, aims to reach more than 5% market share within five years, having transacted two schemes in the last three months of 2024.
Utmost signed a £20m buy-in with an unnamed scheme last November and has now said there was a further transaction in the fourth quarter of last year. The Buckinghamshire-based insurer’s Canadian owner, investment manager Brookfield, created a new insurance entity under Utmost last year in order to take on UK defined benefit schemes.
Utmost said it has “established a strong pipeline for 2025” and is confident it can deliver on a growth target of over 5% within five years.
The company employs 20 experts and has partnered with Schroders and Mantle Services for its asset management, onboarding, administration and moving from buy-in to buyout.
Chief executive Andrew Stoker, chief financial officer of Rothesay until autumn 2023, will lead this new phase, Utmost said. Stoker took over from Stephen Shone, who has retired, in October last year.
Group CEO Paul Thompson welcomed Stoker and thanked Shone, calling him “instrumental in pivoting” Utmost from a closed-book consolidator to an active bulk annuity market player.
“It is pleasing to see that external pension schemes are already recognising the valuable addition that Utmost is making to the sector,” Thompson added.
As the UK bulk annuity market is thriving, there have been new entrants and new models. Last year, M&G revealed it signed its first value-share deal with an external pension scheme, where the corporate sponsor receives some upside. M&G had re-entered the bulk annuity market in September 2023 by insuring its own and an external pension scheme. Royal London entered the market in March 2024.
Utmost signed a £20m buy-in with an unnamed scheme last November and has now said there was a further transaction in the fourth quarter of last year. The Buckinghamshire-based insurer’s Canadian owner, investment manager Brookfield, created a new insurance entity under Utmost last year in order to take on UK defined benefit schemes.
Utmost said it has “established a strong pipeline for 2025” and is confident it can deliver on a growth target of over 5% within five years.
The company employs 20 experts and has partnered with Schroders and Mantle Services for its asset management, onboarding, administration and moving from buy-in to buyout.
Chief executive Andrew Stoker, chief financial officer of Rothesay until autumn 2023, will lead this new phase, Utmost said. Stoker took over from Stephen Shone, who has retired, in October last year.
Group CEO Paul Thompson welcomed Stoker and thanked Shone, calling him “instrumental in pivoting” Utmost from a closed-book consolidator to an active bulk annuity market player.
“It is pleasing to see that external pension schemes are already recognising the valuable addition that Utmost is making to the sector,” Thompson added.
As the UK bulk annuity market is thriving, there have been new entrants and new models. Last year, M&G revealed it signed its first value-share deal with an external pension scheme, where the corporate sponsor receives some upside. M&G had re-entered the bulk annuity market in September 2023 by insuring its own and an external pension scheme. Royal London entered the market in March 2024.
