I am a banking and finance specialist with over 25 years’ experience and am head of Sackers’ covenant support and alternative funding solutions practice.

I advise pension trustees and employers on a wide spectrum of funding, covenant and security solutions for DB pension schemes.  These may arise on risk transfer transactions, such as a buy-in or buy-out, in the context of avoiding trapped surplus or funding insurer premiums where there are illiquid assets in the pension scheme.  Solutions include escrow or charged account arrangements and liquidity facilities from employers to trustees.   I also have broad experience across the full range of contingent assets and funding solutions that can be put in place to support the employer covenant on a DB pension scheme – whether that be as part of a mitigation package in respect of a corporate event or in the context of scheme funding or endgame discussions.

I also advise scheme funders, strategists and trustees in relation to the provision of financial reserves for DC master trusts.  This includes putting in place a wide spectrum of support including guarantees, ring-fenced cash structures, letters of credit and surety bonds and supporting master trust clients in discussions with TPR on the financial reserve elements of authorisation and amendments to financial reserve structures.

My broad experience includes the following areas:

• implementing and unwinding asset-backed funding structures (ABF) / asset-backed contribution structures (ABC) with a range of underlying assets
• co-investment vehicles using English limited liability partnerships and Scottish limited partnerships
• contribution arrangements – contingent contribution agreements, dividend-linked additional contributions and upside sharing
• contingent assets – guarantees, legal mortgages over real estate, letters of credit, funding trusts, reservoir trusts and surety bonds
• escrow or charged account arrangements including to underpin investment risk and provide funding / mitigate trapped surplus on buy-in, buy-out and winding up
• intercreditor and subordination arrangements
• liquidity facilities / loans from employers to trustees
• trapped surplus mitigation arrangements.

Recent experience

• acting for the trustees of the Sears Retail Pension Scheme on their agreement to enter into the UK’s first ever superfund transaction with Clara Pensions
• acting for the trustee of a pension scheme on a multi-billion pound buy-in of scheme liabilities in relation to complex arrangements for the funding of insurer premiums and mitigation of trapped surplus
• acting for the trustee of a pension scheme in relation to a mitigation package in the context of a corporate transaction which included unwinding an ABC structure, amendments to guarantees and putting in place surety bonds, a charged account arrangement and an information sharing protocol
• advising trustees and employers in relation to whether existing guarantees satisfy the requirements for a “look through guarantee” under the DB Funding Code and any required changes to them
• acting for the trustees of a DC master trust in relation to amendments to the financial reserves structure
• acting for the trustee of a pension scheme in relation to the acquisition of the employer group by a private equity consortium which involved the introduction of debt into the group, including the negotiation of intercreditor and subordination arrangements between the trustee, lenders, vendor and intra-group creditors along with a detailed memorandum of understanding between the trustee, new private equity owners and the employer group
• acting for trustee and employer clients in relation to liquidity loans from the employer to the trustee to facilitate buy-ins and buy-outs whilst mitigating trapped surplus.

Qualified: 2001, England and Wales

Joined Sackers: 2011

Became partner: 2013