Lloyds Bank boosts Scottish Widows by bolting on Zurich Insurance’s £15bn workplace pension arm

Lloyds Bank today snapped up Zurich’s £15bn UK workplace pension arm.

The lender will bolt Zurich’s operations onto its Scottish Widows business in a deal that underlined its “commitment to the financial planning and retirement segment”.

Scottish Widows manages more than £124bn of assets, of which £35bn is in workplace pensions.

First launched in 1812, Scottish Widows was mutual firm until 2000. It was bought by Lloyds in 1999 for £7bn.

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Lloyds said it expects to partially close the deal in the first quarter of 2018, with the remained completions and transfers of assets staged over the following months.

Scottish Widows chief exec Antonio Lorenzo said:

Today’s announcement is a clear signal of Lloyds Banking Group’s commitment to the financial planning and retirement segment.

The acquisition of Zurich’s UK workplace pensions and savings business complements Scottish Widows’ growth to date and provides us with an ideal opportunity to accelerate our goal to become a market leader in this important sector, for advisers and customers.

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