LONDON, February 3, 2021 – Buck, an integrated HR and benefits consulting, technology, and administration services firm, has today confirmed its 2020 financial results showing year-on-year organic revenue growth of 8% to £57m in the U.K. The results follow Buck’s strong performance in 2019 in its first full year as an independent entity.
Each of its business lines made a positive contribution to the firm’s 2020 growth, with demand for Buck’s services across actuarial and investment consulting, pensions administration, and employee benefits increasing significantly. 37 new clients were won during the course of the year, including Sky, JTI, SAP, British Tourist Boards, and Molins UK Pension Fund.
As part of the company’s growth and commitment to providing top-level services to clients, Buck expanded its member engagement offering with the acquisition of Concert Consulting, a digitally-focused pensions and employee benefits communications firm, in November 2020. The addition of the team, now named Concert, a Buck company, offers Buck clients access to a market-leading strategic communications consultancy, alongside its existing services and solutions. Combining both organic and acquisitional growth, Buck increased its U.K. headcount by 8.5% over the course of the last year to 734 colleagues.
Leading Buck’s growth with a 15% annual revenue increase was the continued demand for high quality, member-centric, and digitally enabled pensions administration services with a significant number of new clients, and the successful transition of plans to Buck in a completely virtual environment. In addition, Buck saw a large increase in data and benefits project work, fulfilled by the organisation’s national projects team, a dedicated unit set up to deliver on client needs without any impact on day-to-day member service levels.
Buck’s actuarial and investment consulting teams both grew by 6% in 2020, driven by Buck’s first-to-market GMP equalisation solution, Square™, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to cause plan sponsors and trustees to completely rethink how they deliver benefits and engage with members. Taking a client-first approach, Buck has been at the forefront of developing solutions that have helped pension plans, organisations, and employees adapt to the changing workplace, from running a range of virtual discussion forums and webinars, to leading the way in terms of COVID-19 thought leadership and action planning.
Buck’s employee benefits team also achieved modest revenue growth, as well as completing both a review of its go-to-market strategy and the development of a holistic employee benefits technology platform which will ensure it continues to deliver for its clients in 2021 and beyond.
David Piltz, U.K. Managing Director at Buck, commented:
“2020 was a transformative year for the pensions and employee benefit sectors, with the COVID-19 pandemic presenting huge operational and logistical challenges. Achieving this level of growth and having been able to expand both our client base and team, as well as acquiring Concert, a Buck company, is testament to the dedication and hard work of everyone at Buck. I am very proud of the team who continue to deliver high-quality, technology-enabled solutions that help clients adjust to the new landscape while achieving both their desired business outcomes and improved engagement for members. We’re looking forward to building on our strong growth last year and continuing this momentum into 2021.”
About Buck
Together with our clients, we’re defining a new social contract — a mutually beneficial agreement between individuals and organisations where both parties are rewarded for their contributions toward achieving optimal personal and organisational performance.
Our creative digital, consulting, and tech-enabled administration solutions focus on creating a culture of wellbeing, centred around the evolution of each person’s health, wealth, and career. This empowers the world’s most forward-thinking companies to embrace the new social contract, re-energise their workforces, and adopt an analytics-led talent marketplace in ways that improve how their people work and live. For more information, visit www.buck.com.
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