The trustee of the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) has announced that Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) is to be appointed to manage the combined assets of the BSPS defined benefit (DB) scheme.

LGIM and the trustee have an agreement in principle in place, with several employees of the scheme’s in-house investment manager to be transferred to LGIM to support the transition, which is expected to commence in the final quarter of 2022.

BSPS has around 69,175 members and £9.9bn in assets, and is administered by B.S. Pension Fund Trustee Limited, a corporate trustee company set up for this purpose.

BSPS chairman and independent trustee director, Keith Greenfield, said he was very pleased to announce the agreement, noting that Legal & General, LGIM and LGRI already manage and insure just under 40 per cent of the scheme’s assets.

“Leveraging the scale and expertise of LGIM will resolve a number of cost and operational risk issues and will support our strategy to secure liabilities in full with one or more insurers, and be in a position to make additional payments to members under the agreement reached when the scheme was set up,” he continued.

“The trustee would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues in the scheme’s in-house investment team past and present for their significant contribution to both the Old and New British Steel Pension Schemes over a period of many years.

"I hope that a number of our colleagues will continue their careers and involvement with the scheme with LGIM in the future.”

LGIM chief executive, Michelle Scrimgeour, added: “We are delighted to be supporting the trustees and members of BSPS on their route to secure liabilities.

“Like many DB schemes, BSPS has seen its funding level against the cost of securing liabilities with an insurer improve significantly in recent months.

“Our role will be to manage the investments whilst closely matching insurer pricing and, in so doing, we will be leveraging the full resources of the L&G Group.”

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