BCE Inc. in its ground breaking pension de-risking strategy

On March 3, 2015, Sun Life Financial Inc. and BCE Inc. announced a new agreement that further advances BCE’s pension de-risking strategy by transferring longevity risk for C$5 billion of pension plan liabilities to Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada.

Under the new longevity insurance agreement, the first of its kind in North America, the Bell Canada Pension Plan will pay monthly premiums to Sun Life and in exchange Sun Life will make monthly pension payments into the plan for the lifetime of existing pensioners. BCE, which currently provides both defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, maintains full responsibility for the Bell pension plan and related payments to pensioners.

Sun Life has reinsured a portion of the longevity risk to RGA Canada and SCOR Global Life.

Osler provided external support to BCE with a team comprised of Douglas Rienzo, Julien Ranger-Musiol (Pensions & Benefits) and  Hemant Tilak (Tax), Steven Smith (Corporate), Michael Hart (Banking and Financial Services), Michael De Lellis and Andrea Lockhart (Restructuring and Insolvency), Shelley Obal and Timothy Mitchell (Research), and Joanna Fine and Adam Kardash (Privacy).