Christopher Stiles Partner

Christopher Stiles

Christopher Stiles is a partner based in Birmingham and London who specialises in advice to pension trustees.

He has specialist expertise in risk transfer projects such as insurance buy-ins and longevity swaps, and also takes a particular interest in the development of innovative forms of risk transfer such as the development of superfunds and capital-backed solutions for pension schemes. He is recognised for his ability to express complex situations in plain English, and to bring parties together in order to find the best mutually acceptable solution.

Christopher also chairs the West Midlands Group of the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association and uses this platform to run educational and networking events bringing together pension schemes, advisers and providers.

Experience

• advising on longevity swaps, including advising the trustees of a pension scheme sponsored by a Fortune 500 company on a £1 billion swap;
• advising on a series of phased buy-ins and final buy-out for a £3.5 billion pension scheme to secure all liabilities with three different insurers with full residual risks cover;
• negotiating major buy-in contracts with all major insurance providers, for both vanilla and residual-risks transactions;
• advising the trustees of various insolvent pension schemes to secure member benefits outside the Pension Protection Fund and negotiating "PPF+" buy-in contracts to enable this;
• achieving "Highly Commended" status in the FT Innovative Lawyers awards for one such PPF+ transaction which involved a complex five-party negotiation;
• advising the trustees on the first completed "Capital-Backed Journey Plan" transaction;
• advising various clients on asset-backed funding structures using a range of assets and innovative structures to improve the employer's cash flow while simultaneously improving the security of scheme benefits.