Aggreko Pension Scheme

Aggreko Pension Scheme

The Aggreko Pension Scheme was established in 2008 to hold and administer the retirement obligations of Aggreko Limited, the Glasgow-founded provider of mobile generators, chillers, and load banks. Long a constituent of the FTSE 250, Aggreko plc was acquired in August 2021 by TDR Capital and I Squared Capital in a deal that valued the company at approximately £2.3 billion, shifting the covenant supporting the scheme from a listed entity to a private equity-backed structure. Investment strategy is governed by a formal Statement of Investment Principles and implemented through fiduciary partners rather than an internal investment team. The portfolio is bifurcated between a bulk annuity buy-in policy placed with Aviva, which secures a tranche of liabilities through an insurance contract, and a liquid allocation via the LGIM Sterling Liquidity Fund, which provides cash-flow management for ongoing benefit payments. The approach reflects a liability-driven mindset — the scheme prioritises certainty of outcome over alpha generation and has no meaningful exposure to growth assets. Barnett Waddingham acts as the full-service actuarial, investment, and administration provider to the trustee, a concentration of fiduciary responsibility common among mid-sized UK defined-benefit schemes. The scheme’s beneficiary base consists of former employees of Aggreko’s global rental fleet operations; the parent company maintains a workforce spanning over 200 locations worldwide, but the pension liabilities themselves are governed under UK trust law. Allan Martin serves as the chair of the corporate trustee, which operates independently of the sponsoring employer under the regulatory oversight of The Pensions Regulator. Structural differentiator: the scheme is an end-of-life liability manager, not an accumulator. With a significant buy-in already in place and the remainder of assets held in cash-equivalent instruments, its remaining function is administrative — managing the glide path toward full insurer buyout. The 2021 private-equity acquisition of the sponsoring employer introduced a different sponsor credit profile, but the bulk annuity arrangement already isolates the secured member benefits from the employer’s operating risk.