KPMG has agreed a deal for the buy-out of its UK pensions division, which will continue to serve clients under the ownership of its current management team. The management buy-out is understood to have been backed by Exponent Private Equity, the private equity firm which entered into exclusive talks with KPMG for the purchase in October.

In recent months, KPMG has been conducting a continuous restructuring of its UK operations. The Big Four firm sunk a £45 million investment into its Audit arm in order to beef up quality, following revelations that KPMG had carried out deeply flawed audits at a number of clients in the UK.

Following a slowing of revenue growth, KPMG also announced it was set to downsize its Partner count by around one-tenth. Further to all this, in July it was first suggested that KPMG was flirting with the idea of offloading its pensions consulting unit.

The division employs about 20 partners and 500 people and works for some of UK’s largest pension companies, holding around £50 billion of pension assets under advice. After initially holding discussions with a number of interested parties – including Lane Clark & Peacock and Duff & Phelps – by October, KPMG had picked out a viable candidate for exclusive merger & acquisition talks.

According to Sky News, Exponent Private Equity – an investor that has previously backed companies such as vegetarian food producer Quorn and Loch Lomond Distillery – was expected to be chasing a deal worth in excess of £200 million. Now, just over a month later, news has broken that the private equity group has sealed the deal.

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