Royal London announces £61m BPA transaction with the Stora Enso UK Group Pension Scheme

Royal London, the UK’s largest mutual life, pensions and investment provider, has completed a bulk purchase annuity (BPA) transaction with the Stora Enso UK Group Pension Scheme.

This latest buy-in covers 758 members and marks the first transaction completed with Quantum Advisory – and means Royal London has now insured the benefits of over 6,000 members across 11 external buy-in transactions in 2025.

Quantum Advisory already provided actuarial, administration, investment advisory services to the Trustee and were also chosen to provide risk transfer support to the Trustee. Chris Mason of Quantum Advisory was the lead on the risk broking services and Burges Salmon are the Scheme’s legal advisors. Royal London was advised by Mayer Brown.

The Trustee ran a competitive process with a focus on policyholder care and delivering excellent outcomes for their members.

As highlighted in Royal London’s Interim Results 2025 announcement in August, more than £1bn has now been insured since Royal London formally launched its BPA business almost a year ago. External BPA transactions have ranged in size from the £22m transaction with the London Waste Pension Scheme through to the £275m transaction with the Grant Thornton Pensions Fund.

Commenting on this latest transaction, Moin Patala, BPA Origination Lead at Royal London said:

“We’re proud to have partnered with the Trustee of the Stora Enso UK Group Pension Scheme to secure the benefits of more than 750 members. We’re looking forward to welcoming both the Trustee and their members to Royal London.

“This was also our first transaction with Quantum Advisory and we’re pleased to have built such a strong foundation for future work together.”

Commenting on the transaction, Chris Mason, Principal Consultant at Quantum Advisory said:

“This is a really positive outcome for members, the Trustee and Stora Enso. Following a lot of hard work by all advisers, the Scheme was well prepared to approach the market. We were very pleased to achieve such a high level of insurer engagement and competitive pricing giving the Trustee a wide range of choice. the Scheme was well prepared to approach the market. We were very pleased to achieve such a high level of insurer engagement and competitive pricing giving the Trustee a wide range of choice.

“We were impressed by Royal London’s administration offering as well as their post transaction processes and are very pleased to have completed our first transaction with them.”

Commenting on the transaction, Gordon Blum on behalf of the Trustee said:

“First and foremost, this is an excellent outcome for our members and now means the benefits for all members of the Scheme have been fully secured. Stora Enso have generously supported the Scheme for many years and achieving this milestone is testament to this as well as the support we have received from our advisers.

“The competitive process led by Quantum gave us a number of strong options to consider and we are very pleased to have completed this transaction with Royal London.”

Commenting on the transaction, James Barr, Director of Stora Enso UK Limited said:

“I am delighted that this step has been taken to secure the pension benefits of over 750 current and former employees. Stora Enso has proactively supported the Scheme over the last 20 years to ensure this was possible, and we are grateful to the sterling work carried out by the Trustee, and advisers, during the same period to get this over the line.”