Wragge & Co LLP Pensions team has advised the trustees of Emap plc defined benefit pension schemes on a buyout deal with Paternoster. Under the deal Paternoster will take on all financial responsibility for the pension schemes in place of Emap plc.

Partner Vivien Cockerill led a Wragge & Co team, which comprised solicitor Ruth Blackburn and associate Richard Lee. The team worked closely with Rosemary Kennell from Aspen Trustees Limited.

Rosemary Kennell said "Wragge & Co has provided a first-class professional service in supporting the trustees through some very complex and challenging issues. This deal is a first, which has taken a lot of creative thinking and commitment from our advisers to make it happen."

Vivien Cockerill said: "Emap and the trustees have achieved their objectives over a very short time period and the members benefit from an immediate improvement in the security of their benefits. It is a superb result and another example of the market-leading work undertaken by Wragge & Co's pensions specialists."

FTSE-250 company Emap is a brand-led, multiplatform media group with a portfolio of over 200 brands including Heat, FHM and Grazia. Wragge & Co has a longstanding relationship with the Emap pension trustees.

Paternoster is a regulated insurance company. It takes on the risks associated with companies' final salary/defined benefit pension schemes and assumes the responsibility for paying their pensioners into the future. Neil Bowden at Allen & Overy advised Emap and Hugh Gittins at Eversheds advised Paternoster.

Wragge & Co's six-partner pensions practice is the FT Business Pension and Investment Provider Awards' law firm of the year. It operates as a single team of experts advising employers, trustees and institutional clients on a full range of non-contentious and contentious pensions issues.

The national team is widely recognised as one of the UK's top-tier pensions practices. In the past 12 months the trustees of Ashridge Pension Scheme, Britannia Building Society Pension Scheme and two AMEC schemes have appointed the team as their pensions law advisers. Other clients include the Rolls-Royce Pension Fund, Philips Pensions Trustees Limited and Steria.

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For further information about this press release, contact Kathryn Hobbs on +44 (0)121 213 2397, Alexa Highfield on +44 (0)121 213 2396 or Michelle Dolphin on +44 (0)121 213 2369

This press release may contain information of general interest about current legal issues, but does not give legal advice.