National Pension Trust (NPT), the £1bn-plus master trust from XPS, is rumoured to be on the cusp of being sold to SEI.
DC pension provider NPT had £1.3bn in assets at the end of 2012, with 58,500 active members and 25,000 deferred members.
Several industry sources have told Corporate Adviser that a deal between SEI and XPS is close. The acquisition would be a second master trust purchase by SEI, which bought Capita’s Atlas master trust in 2021, bringing its combined master trust assets to £2bn as at the end of 2022.
Set up in 2009 as the Xafinity Consulting Pension Trust, the scheme’s aggressive investment approach — which has a 100 per cent equity exposure during the growth phase, falling to 40 per cent at retirement — has helped propel it towards the top of the performance tables for both younger and older savers.
Growth phase investors have enjoyed returns of 10.7 per cent annualised per year over the five years to 31.3.23 — the second highest return over this period and comfortably above the Corporate Adviser Pensions Average (CAPA).
A spokesperson for SEI said the organisation did not comment on media speculation.