Legal Counsel - Pension Derisking

At M&G, our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. With a heritage dating back more than 175 years, we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.
Our two distinct operating segments, Asset Management and Life, work together to provide access to balanced, long-term investment and savings solutions.
Through telling it like it is, owning it now and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.
We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.

Legal Counsel, Pension Derisking

We are looking for an experienced pension risk transfer lawyer to join as permanent member of the M&G Legal team, focusing on advising our growing pensions de-risking business on all aspects of insured risk transfer arrangements.  The ideal candidate will have strong transactional experience of not just buy-in/buy-out transactions, but also associated solutions, and will have a strong interest in the development of innovative de-risking solutions tailored to the complex needs of corporate and institutional clients.

Key Responsibilities

The role encompasses a broad range of legal skills, covering legal advisory, transaction structuring and execution, drafting and negotiating transaction documentation, regulatory work and supporting the company’s strategic projects.

Job & Personal Skills:

This full-time role will cover legal advisory, structuring, product building, transaction execution and supporting key corporate and regulatory change projects.

Key competencies:

• A deep understanding of the pension sector, specifically the de-risking market, with  experience and knowledge across the market
• Strong experience in advising on bulk annuity transactions, and the de-risking of defined benefit pension schemes.  Experienced in drafting and negotiating transaction documents.  Ideally this will be experience of acting for insurance companies/ other pension product providers, but helpful to have experience acting for sponsoring employers/ trustees
• Experience of with longevity swap transactions and funded and longevity reinsurance transactions
• Proven capability in managing external counsel in and capable of building and developing relationships with key internal stakeholders
• Capable of acting as business partner to the relevant business teams

Personal qualities:

• Strong drafting and analytical skills and attention to detail
• Brings strong judgement and is decisive
• Intellectually curious with a desire to learn and develop their skills
• A willingness to challenge/debate and offer own views
• Tenacious, willing to go beyond the job description
• Transparent and a good communicator. Works most effectively when collaborating within the team and across other functions
• Resilience and strength of character that enables effective communication across all levels of the organisation
• Flexible with the ability to adapt to changing priorities and fluid deadlines.

Qualifications

• Qualified lawyer (there is no requirement that the candidate must be English qualified) (Essential)

Knowledge & Experience

• Pensions de-risking lawyer working in the pensions team of a law firm and/or in-house team of an insurer/other market player in the de-risking space. (Essential)
• Strong academic credentials

Location: London

Experience Level: Manager / Expert

Recruiter: Helen Simons

What we offer:

We’re dedicated to supporting your wellbeing and helping you thrive, both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life, and financially plan for the future. Our UK benefits include:

• A valuable pension scheme of up to 18% (13% made up of employer contributions and 5% employee contributions).
• Access to our Share Save and Share Incentive Plan, alongside financial wellbeing and support services to help give you real confidence to put your money to work.
• Enjoy 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays), with the opportunity to purchase up to five extra days. Our Time Off When You Need It policy gives you the flexibility - to balance work and personal commitments.
• Our market-leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and paternity leave - because supporting families is an important part of our inclusive culture.
• Health & Protection cover includes Private Healthcare, Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you, with additional family options - for peace of mind.

To explore more about life at M&G and our full benefits offering, visit Life at M&G

At M&G we strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, underpinned by our policies and employee-led networks that offer networking, support and development opportunities for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.

M&G is proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme, and we welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions. If you would like to participate in the initiative, you will have the opportunity to indicate this on your application.

We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. All candidates have the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments when applying. If you need any additional support at any stage, please contact us at: [email protected]