This does not fill me with surprise or excitement. It shows abandonment of pensions to complete the job of feeding the maws of American “vulture” financiers.
The story is laid out by Alexandra Heal and Emma Dunkley and it should not make anyone in the UK very happy.
Partnership deals would save KKR from the full regulatory burden of owning a European insurance company and would allow it to focus on sourcing deals, one of the people said.
Leave discussions with the PRA to the locals
Athora doubled in size after its £5.7bn purchase last year of UK retirement savings group Pension Insurance Corporation, which had £50bn in assets.
Get big quick by swallowing the entrails of UK pension funds
Brookfield’s insurance arm also announced a £2.4bn acquisition last year of Just Group, another group specialising in pension risk transfers, or buyouts of pension policies.
I bumped into one of 200 people “at risk” at Just who told me that the upper tier of management has already been replaced by Brookfield.
For Brookfield and Athora read Global Atlantic.
KKR bought a majority stake in US insurer Global Atlantic in 2021 and later took full ownership.
Some might say that KKR are coming a little late to the party. Blackstone have already done the deal with L&G, Standard are tying up with CVC (being too small for KKR apparently). Whoever is left in the UK knows they’re a target as KKR circle like vultures. They know the name of KKR’s Global Atlantic
But it’s not just life insurers that should worry. What about the superfunds that want to consolidate small DB plans and run them on? What about larger pensions that fear they may do what Rolls Royce has done (rather than do a Stagecoach or convince their sponsor of the virtue of the surplus). What of the PPF? What will the PPF do? Wait until things get bad again as they surely will one day?