National advice firm Lighthouse is selling its auto-enrolment pensions business after new regulations made it too costly.

In September, Lighthouse announced it would review whether it should keep the business under a new authorisation regime for master trusts, being introduced by The Pensions Regulator, which comes into force on 1 April 2019. Lighthouse said the new regulatory regime will ‘significantly increase running costs’.

The business is being sold to Auto-Enrolment Master Trust (AEMT), operated by Smart Pension, itself part-owned by Legal & General. All participating employers and members and the scheme assets will be transferred to AEMT once that scheme has been authorised.

Lighthouse chief executive Malcolm Streatfield, said: ‘Given the investment made by the Group to date in establishing and maintaining the Lighthouse Pensions Trust, the significant increase in operating costs that will arise from the Pensions Regulator's new authorisation regime, and the highly competitive market for the provision of auto-enrolment compliant workplace pension schemes, the maintenance by the group of the Lighthouse Pensions Trust, within the corporate pensions trust, could no longer be justified.’