INDUSTRY
Trigon is the pensions advisory business of Trigon Pensions Holdings Ltd, providing actuarial, administration, consultancy, and investment advisory work to a range of pension scheme clients and sponsors.
In April 2018, Avondale were selected to find an appropriate buyer for the Trigon Pensions and financial services business, which encompassed pensions consultancy and administration, but also offered actuarial and wealth management services. The high initial interest resulted in five solid offers. The successful bidder was XPS Pensions Group PLC, which has been active in making recent and ongoing acquisitions in the sector.
The deal was complex, however. Actuarial services had been outsourced and this need to be brought in house. In addition, XPS did not want to acquire the wealth management business as it fell outside of their core activities and has different regulatory requirements. Even so, their bid was strong, the fit was good and a six-month window was created to produce a stand-alone deal for the wealth management arm.
A Special Purpose Vehicle was created for this sale, which enjoyed a brisk response, with 2 serious final bidders, including The Citimark Partnership. Their preferred bid was actually the lower of the two, but was accepted due to a number of factors. There was a good geographical and cultural fit and not least, it offered a more secure long-term future for the business and its staff. Both business sales were concluded within one month of each other in Q3 2019.
