Choosing the right destination

When WPS started out, many of the Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes we advised on had significant funding deficits, and the prevailing question was how to remove a pension liability from the family balance sheet. Today, the conversation is often very different. Most schemes we see are well funded, many are in surplus, and families have more choices than ever about what they want their pension scheme to become.

There are more endgame options than ever before: buy-in; buy-out, capital-backed arrangements; superfunds; and running the scheme on. There is no single right answer for every family. Our job is to help you navigate that choice with the discipline of a strategic adviser, applied to a decision that’s really about your family’s values, your people, and what the business stands for.

We start by setting out the main considerations and financial impact of each option available to your scheme, bringing that together into a clear recommendation on the solution most likely to meet your goals. For schemes heading toward the insurance market, we help create a clear route to transaction readiness: identifying any improvements to data or benefit clarity; drafting benefit specifications; resolving historical issues; supporting rectification work where required; and insuring the scheme can withstand insurer due diligence. We also consider whether member option exercises could improve member choice, simplify administration, or support the scheme's long-term objectives. We track insurer pricing on an ongoing basis so you can see the likely cost of a transaction each month, and advise on the right time to approach the market. Our focus is on helping you arrive at your chosen destination with fewer surprises and greater certainty.

Sharing in the scheme's success

For decades, pension schemes were viewed as liabilities to be managed. Today, many family businesses find themselves in a very different position: sponsoring schemes that are fully funded and, increasingly, in surplus.

Recent legislative changes are expected to give trustees and employers greater flexibility over how surplus can be used, opening up possibilities that were previously unavailable to many schemes. Subject to the appropriate safeguards, a strong funding position may create opportunities not only for the business, but also for the employees and pensioners whose efforts helped build it. Surplus could potentially be used to create value for the sponsoring employer and to provide additional payments to its members.

We help families understand what options are available in practice. That means reviewing the scheme's governing documentation, assessing the emerging legislative framework, modelling different scenarios, and balancing the interests of the business, current employees, pensioners and future generations of family ownership.

For many families, this is about more than finance. It is an opportunity to decide how the rewards of a successful pension scheme should be shared with the people who helped create that success. Our role is to help you approach those decisions thoughtfully, fairly and with a clear understanding of the long-term consequences.

Practical help for underfunded schemes

Not every scheme is yet in the fortunate position of choosing between endgames. For schemes that aren’t yet fully funded, the priority is making steady, affordable progress. To WPS, that means working alongside your existing advisers, not replacing them, to keep funding, cash flow and governance moving together in the right direction.

On funding itself, we challenge the demographic and financial assumptions behind your valuation to make sure they’re robust without being overly cautious, support discussions on what the business can afford and how a recovery plan should be paced, and help you navigate The Pensions Regulator’s expectations. We also look at how the employer covenant is reflected in funding decisions, and where useful, explore guarantees or contingent assets that can support it without tying up cash the business needs.

Running costs matter, particularly for smaller schemes. We assess whether administration, actuarial and legal costs remain proportionate to the size and complexity of the scheme and identify opportunities to improve value for money without compromising governance or member outcomes.

Using our extensive pensions accounting experience, we help prepare accounting disclosures and explain pension figures to boards and finance teams.

We also look at the scheme factors that shape members’ choices, benchmarking transfer values and early retirement terms against comparable schemes, so the decisions members make aren’t quietly working against your funding progress.

Keeping your scheme moving to buy-out

Securing a buy-in is a major milestone for a DB scheme. Funding and investment risk fall away, and the long-term direction becomes clear. But the post buy-in phase can run for years, and it involves a concentration of technical work and continued engagement from every adviser involved. Without clear ownership and momentum, costs can increase and timelines can slip, and schemes that aren’t actively managed can quickly drift down everyone’s priority list.

We specialise in providing independent support to pension schemes through this critical stage. We’re not responsible for the scheme’s ongoing operations or long-term advisory relationships; our sole focus is providing clarity, structure and hands-on project management from buy-in through to buy-out and wind-up, as efficiently as possible. Where possible, we prefer to work on a fixed fee basis, because we think that reassures trustees and sponsors that our incentive is to maintain momentum, not to spin the work out.

Our support is shaped by where your scheme sits following its buy-in: whether some liabilities remain uninsured and trustees continue running the scheme alongside an insurance contract, or all liabilities are insured but trustees retain legal responsibility until buy-out completes. Either way, we give you clarity on what the buy-in has achieved, and what risk, cost and responsibility still remains.

We act as an independent project manager and trusted adviser across the whole journey: building a clear project plan covering buy-in, buy-out and wind-up; actively coordinating trustees, the sponsoring family business, administrators, the scheme actuary, lawyers, insurers and brokers where necessary; and identifying and resolving issues early, before they delay buy-out or add cost.