Private Equity Services

We work with PE firms, offering expert guidance through the critical phases of due diligence and post-acquisition services

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A Structured Partnership

We partner with private equity firms at every stage of the investment journey, offering specialised expertise in two core areas:

Due Diligence

Our due diligence services provide a clear understanding of your target's financial health, operational capabilities, and the risks and opportunities of their pensions and employee benefits.
Post-Completion

Wren Sterling can help you execute on the value identified during the due diligence stage. We work closely with businesses to simplify their administration and set them on the road to harmonisation.

At Wren Sterling, we understand that successful private equity investments demand a strategic and integrated approach, from initial assessment through to sustained value creation. Our Private Equity Services are designed to support you at every stage, ensuring robust decision-making and optimal outcomes.

We provide expert guidance through two critical phases: meticulous due diligence and comprehensive post-completion services. This structured approach ensures that potential risks are identified and mitigated upfront, and that strategic value is realised throughout the investment lifecycle.

Due Diligence

Uncovering Opportunities, Mitigating Risks

Workplace pensions and benefits can be a tough area to analyse if you’re not immersed in that world every day. Wren Sterling’s Workplace team is. We instinctively know what fair value looks like for our clients based on our daily interactions with product providers. We can quickly spot administrative errors or regulatory failings and importantly, fix them.

However, the real value we offer PE firms, their portfolio businesses, and other acquiring firms, is in the weeds. We pull out and compare the different pensions and benefits in place, identifying opportunities that can make a meaningful difference to capital value and the employee value proposition of your target firms.

We’re proud of the work we do in this space and as a PE-owned firm ourselves, we understand fast-moving nature of deals and the importance of timely, accurate input.

How we add value at the Due Diligence stage

We help you know what you’re buying, before you buy it.

1. Quantify integration costs and timelines before you buy

Inform your post-acquisition costs.
2. Understand employee benefit risks in target acquisitions

Prepare mitigation strategies ahead of day 1.
3. Create an employee benefits consolidation plan

Start unlocking value and quantify required resources ahead of completion.
4. Ensure regulatory compliance

Tick the most important box in any Workplace Benefits audit.
5. Create a template approach for future acquisitions

Speed up future due diligence processes.

Download our Private Equity Services: Due Diligence brochure

Initial Due Diligence Services

Our deep expertise in workplace pensions and employee benefits enables us to provide pre and post-transaction services.

Pension Market Review & Alignment

An assessment of potential value creation arising from a market review and consolidation of existing schemes.
Salary Exchange Implementation

An assessment on each target / acquired entity to ascertain the cost savings and value creation from the implementation of salary exchange, with the objective to align and streamline where appropriate.
Group Risk Review & Alignment

An assessment of existing schemes to identify: potential cost synergies via consolidation into the acquisition group, the best possible outcomes for members, and where benefits may be aligned across all entities leading to a single scalable solution.

Our approach to working together

Our aim is to get off the ground quickly. Once we have a detailed understanding of your requirements and your agreement to proceed, we can begin work straight away. From initial meeting to work starting can be as little as two weeks.

1. Initial meeting to scope requirements

Either face to face or via video, the initial consultation is provided at our cost. We’ll seek to obtain an understanding of your requirements and to provide an outline of our initial thoughts.
2. Proposal document summarising requirements and indicative approach

We’ll walk through timelines and likely involvement required from you. We’ll provide a detailed report outlining our recommendations.
3. Provision of terms of business and client agreements

This will outline the scope of our services, our regulatory obligations and the agreement between our firms. We’ll also support this with a service level agreement.
4. Anti Money Laundering (AML) checks on directors of PE firm and relevant portfolio businesses

This is a regulatory requirement but is categorised as a soft mark on individual credit profiles.

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Starting client work

We understand the relationships between a PE firm and its portfolio businesses. We understand M&A. We’re Private Equity backed and have completed 30 acquisitions over the last 6 years.

There are many different elements to consider when assessing target businesses. As specialists in Employee Benefits, we will identify and create a detailed plan for the mitigation of risks, for future simplification, and for value creation in this element of your DD.

Project management from Wren Sterling simplifies the complexities involved, incorporating a defined service level agreement between us.

This includes the utilisation of project plans to track each step (with a breakdown for each entity within the group) and regular meetings to provide updates, confirm key decisions, and manage tasks and timescales accordingly.

1. Creation of a data room to share scheme information from across the group

Complete necessary data gathering from each pension and group risk provider within each entity within the group.
2. Undertake individual scheme due diligence

Understand what is in place. What are the value creation opportunities, what are the hidden risks.
3. Determine and understand any complexities around administration and data handling requirements between entities

Can simplification and streamlining of data administration save costs and time? E.g. one admin for whole group vs one admin per entity with data etc fully ringfenced.
4. Managing multiple stakeholders

Integration can be a slow motion clash of cultures, heightened protectionism and resistance to change. We’re sensitive to that. We’ll work to bring parties together for the collective benefit of the group.

Post-Completion

Consolidating workplace benefits following a merger or acquisition

Mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity can present businesses with unique challenges in the consolidation and management of pension and benefits schemes.

Wren Sterling works closely with businesses that have made acquisitions to simplify their administration and set them on the road to harmonisation and de-risking the employee benefits aspect of their business.

Our approach

We typically act as a consultant to private equity houses and private equity-owned firms to help you understand the scale of your challenge and the opportunities that can be unlocked through consolidation and simplification. We’ve got project management resources, so we can be as hands on as you need us to be.

Audit

Typically, we will start with a pension scheme audit and present our findings and recommendations to you, which includes suggested next steps for bringing your schemes together.
Project planning

We’ll support you through the project, liaising with your chosen scheme provider on your behalf and helping you to manage its implementation and communication to affected employees.
Governance

We’re also available to support you with ongoing scheme governance. This is an important regulatory duty, and we help trustees across the UK to discharge their duties.

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Why consolidate workplace pension schemes?

Wren Sterling supports companies who have multiple businesses to integrate and each of those comes with a different pension scheme, which requires monthly administration and governance. What’s more, the acquirer has no control over the employer contribution levels, or the costs and charges of the scheme, which can vary considerably.

By going to market for a new scheme and merging acquired businesses into it, companies can bring pension schemes together, reduce their administration and often secure better terms than previously, as there are more employees in the scheme.

This principle also applies to the wider benefits across the acquisitions too, if required. A good example of this is private medical insurance (PMI). A small business may be disadvantaged and not able to offer as comprehensive cover as a larger business. By consolidating, you may be able to secure more favourable terms and better underwriting for members.

When the new schemes are in place, it provides a framework for future acquisitions, simplifying the onboarding of employees and their benefits and quickly embedding them into the same structure.

Download our Private Equity Services: Post-Completion brochure

How Wren Sterling helps PE houses based overseas

We have deep knowledge of UK pension legislation, and we regularly work with organisations based overseas that have a UK entity. This protects their interests and ensures the right outcomes for members of those schemes in the UK.

The UK pensions and benefits market can be complex space, which is subject to regular change, such as the planned reduction in lower earnings limit and age of automatic enrolment.

Services you might consider as a PE house

Workplace Pensions

Pensions rules and regulations can be complex, so we can recommend a single workplace pension scheme for your business.
Group Risk

Group Risk benefits can be consolidated and preferential terms secured, providing a valuable safety net for employees.
Salary Exchange

Salary exchange in a consolidation context can unlock a lot of value for organisations and increase the range of benefits available to their employees.
Workplace Healthcare

Workplace healthcare can give employees and their families peace of mind that their medical needs are being supported.
Workforce Analysis - Understanding your employees

If you’re creating a single strategy, you should understand what your employees need from their Employee Benefits.
Flexible Benefits

Give your company’s employees the freedom to choose the benefits they will value most.
Business Protection

Minimise your liabilities and protect your business against uncertainty and the impact of losing key employees.

We've experienced a real spike in demand for our services from the PE industry in recent years. Building through acquisition is an exciting growth story for everyone involved but it can leave a patchwork quilt of workplace pension schemes and benefits to manage. It can also create huge disparity in the same organisation, so we work alongside HR Directors and consultants to implement single schemes, going to market to secure the best prices and staying on hand to support future acquisition and integration projects.

Sarah Herd, Head of Workplace, Wren Sterling

Why choose Wren Sterling to help you simplify benefit schemes?

450+

businesses as clients
80,000+

employees supported
600+

workplace schemes advised on

Our employee benefits experts

Sarah Herd

Head of Workplace

Sarah has worked in the financial services industry for over 25 years. She joined Wren Sterling in 2016 having worked as an independent financial…Read more
Paul Mitchell

Director, Corporate Solutions

Paul has worked in the employee benefit industry for over 25 years, 15 of which have been spent advising companies on their employee benefit strategy.…Read more
Bramwell Towse

Director, Corporate Solutions

Bramwell has 40 years of financial services experience with the past 37 years in employee benefits. Areas of advice include group pensions (both…Read more
Bryan Stott

Corporate Consultant

Bryan has worked in the employee benefit industry for over 20 years and before that he ran his own IFA practice. Bryan has been heavily involved in…Read more
Roger Dickenson

Corporate Consultant

Roger has over 25 years’ experience providing advice to SME clients on employee benefits provision. This includes the review and communication of…Read more

Sarah Herd

Head of Workplace

Sarah has worked in the financial services industry for over 25 years. She joined Wren Sterling in 2016 having worked as an independent financial…Read more
Paul Mitchell

Director, Corporate Solutions

Paul has worked in the employee benefit industry for over 25 years, 15 of which have been spent advising companies on their employee benefit strategy.…Read more
Bramwell Towse

Director, Corporate Solutions

Bramwell has 40 years of financial services experience with the past 37 years in employee benefits. Areas of advice include group pensions (both…Read more
Bryan Stott

Corporate Consultant

Bryan has worked in the employee benefit industry for over 20 years and before that he ran his own IFA practice. Bryan has been heavily involved in…Read more
Roger Dickenson

Corporate Consultant

Roger has over 25 years’ experience providing advice to SME clients on employee benefits provision. This includes the review and communication of…Read more