EDDIE TRUELL’s Pension Insurance Corporation has taken over the £1 billion retirement scheme of electronics firm Thorn in Britain’s biggest-ever pension buyout deal.

Almost 15,000 pensioners of the former TV rental group are affected by the move, which follows a six-month auction by the scheme’s trustees.

The deal comes 18 months after Truell bought the remnants of the Thorn retail empire to get access to their pension schemes.

Thorn trustees courted bids from Legal & General, Mark Wood’s Paternoster Life as well as Pension Insurance Corporation.

To secure the deal, Truell’s firm has agreed to boost payouts to the fund’s pensioners by about 5% a year.

The Thorn scheme is marginally bigger than the Cable & Wireless fund, which was recently sold to Prudential. More than £8 billion of pension assets have changed hands this year, following a flurry of deals that involved household names like the Rank leisure group and magazine publisher Emap.

Slumping equity and bond markets have made it more difficult for a number of schemes to consider a sale. However, dozens of pension funds with combined assets of more than £40 billion, are still looking at possible deals.

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