Smart Pension has completed the consolidation of Crystal Trust assets into its own master trust.
Smart acquired the Crystal master trust from Evolve Pensions in 2023 — one of the biggest consolidations in this market last year.
Crystal Trust provides pensions for over 1,400 employers and had 130,000 individual members and had £880m in AUM. These members and their assets have now been moved over in a bulk to the Smart Pension Master Trust.
Initially the deal was approved by The Pensions Regulator in October 2023, with the transition of all assets completed in August this year. Smart Pension says the success of this transition was down to the collaborative efforts of the Evolve and Smart Pension teams and was aided by the technological efficiencies offered by Keystone — Smart’s in-house savings platform.Transferred individuals and businesses now have access to Smart Pension’s app, enabling easy management of pension savings for members, and efficient contribution management for employers and advisers.
Since this acquisition, Smart Pension has also announced a deal with STM Group, who currently operate the Options Master Trust. The transfer is expected to bring up to 300,000 members and £545m in assets over to Smart Pension. This is likely to bring Smart Pension’s AUM past the £7bn mark, and see it run pensions for more than two million members on completion.
Smart says it will continue to seek out further acquisition opportunities in the UK DC market.
Smart UK chief executive officer Jamie Fiveash says: “Full scheme transitions and consolidations of this size are not straightforward but it is testament to the quality and experience of our teams, powered by our underlying technology, that this has been completed so effectively.
“Assets from the Crystal Trust have now been fully transferred onto the Keystone platform and into our default investment strategy, where we are focused on delivering exceptional value for our members.
“Greater scale, means more efficiency and better value, ultimately leading to better financial outcomes for our members. Smart Pension is on a growth trajectory and we will continue to seek out acquisition opportunities within the UK DC market as the pensions market continues to consolidate.”
