Amelia Fawcett, the former vice-chairman and chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley in Europe, will today launch a new company that aims to use the capital markets to tackle risks in UK final salary pension schemes.

Pensions First, some ten months in the making, will be chaired by Ms Fawcett, who left Morgan Stanley earlier this year. The company plans to use complex financial structures such as securitisations to help defined benefit pension schemes to meet their liabilities accurately. It aims to sidestep issues such as longevity risk, or the chances that scheme members live longer than expected.

“We’re not trying to take over people’s pension schemes,” said Ms Fawcett, whose managing partner will be Timothy Lyons, a former banker at Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Brothers who founded the independent asset manager Quadrant Capital. “But we see a huge market for scheme-specific investment solutions that can manage away longevity risk in a way that’s not been done before,” she said.

Ms Fawcett, a native of Boston, started her career at Sullivan & Cromwell, the New York law firm.

She quit to help to set up Morgan Stanley’s legal department in London and, during her 20 years with the bank, she rose to become one of the most powerful women in London banking circles.

News of her surprise departure from the bank came just a few weeks after Ms Fawcett, 51, had completed a transatlantic voyage to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. She had started sailing in her youth off the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts.

Ms Fawcett, who has dual American and British citizenship, helped to shape the responsibilities of the Financial Services Authority, becoming a member of the Bank of England’s Court of Directors in 2004, and is involved with many charities. Her work was recognised a few years ago with her appointment as CBE.

Ms Fawcett said Pensions First, which is competing for a slice of a £1.5 trillion market, had raised funds from two large investors, a Japanese investment bank and a high-net-worth individual who founded a hedge fund.