Aon Hewitt advises on $440 mln Alcatel-Lucent bulk annuity deal

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Aon Hewitt said on Tuesday it had advised the UK pension scheme of French telecoms company Alcatel (Paris: FR0000130007 - news) -Lucent on a 300 million pound ($441.09 million) derisking deal with insurer Aviva (Other OTC: AIVAF - news) .

Under the terms of the deal, Aviva will 'buy in' the liabilities of a group of pensioners included in the scheme, which has total liabilities of around 1 billion pounds, Aon (NYSE: AON - news) said in a statement.

The deal follows a full 'buy-out' of liabilities for a smaller group scheme in 2014, and takes the scheme as a whole closer to a full buy-out, said Martin Couzens, Chairman of Alcatel-Lucent Pension Trustees Limited, in the statement.

Under a buy-in, the scheme continues to pay the pensions of its members, but the insurer provides an insurance policy for a portion of the scheme, covering risks such as that members may live longer than expected or that investment returns may fall.

A buy-out deal, meanwhile, is where the insurer takes on full responsibility for managing the scheme payments and liaises directly with the pensioner.

($1 = 0.6801 pounds) (Reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by Carolyn Cohn)