Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business, announces today that it has had its proposal(s) accepted to invest into The Long-term Investment for Technology and Sciences (LIFTS), subject to internal governance processes. The LIFTS initiative sought proposals from industry for the establishment of new funds and investment structures to crowd in UK institutional investment, to support the growth ambitions of the UK’s most innovative science and technology companies.

The LIFTS initiative is being launched with the aim to achieve three objectives that will support the long-term and sustainable growth of the UK:

• Unlock UK Institutional Investment - catalyse more investment from UK DC pension schemes into venture and growth equity in a sustainable manner, so as to increase the supply of domestic sources of capital for productive investment and increase access to potentially higher returning assets for UK savers.
• Catalyse investment into UK science and technology– increase the supply of capital to UK science and technology scale-ups at the later stages. The UK has a wealth of science and technology businesses, which could offer valuable investment opportunities for UK savers.
• Stimulate the UK VC ecosystem - sustainably increase deal flow, develop the domestic venture landscape, and nurture investment and entrepreneurial talent, and attract the best international players to the UK to enable high-potential UK businesses to scale and stay here.

Andy Briggs, Chief Executive Officer at Phoenix Group, commented: 

“Our successful bids into the LIFTS initiative, subject to internal governance processes, are testament to our continued commitment to give our customers access to the potential returns of a broader range of assets, in line with their international counterparts. Currently, the UK lags significantly behind comparable international markets (P7) who typically invest 20% of their pensions in private market assets, compared to 14% in the UK, with the UK remaining the lowest allocating country to private markets within the P7.”

“LIFTS will give us more opportunities to provide stable, patient capital to the UK’s most innovative businesses to accelerate their growth, whilst delivering potential higher returns to our customers. We will continue to work with all stakeholders to deliver a successful outcome with customer protection remaining at its core.”