London. 5th December 2011 National Grid,an international electricity and gas company, has selected RiskFirst as its technology partner to provide advanced analytics on its pension schemes. RiskFirst’s award-winning business intelligence platform, PFaroe^®, will empower National Grid to manage its £15bn ofUK pension obligations in a more timely, accurate and effective manner.

Since its launch at the end of 2009, PFaroe has now been adopted by 22 pension plans representing £50bn of UK pension liabilities. Users of PFaroe include Aga Rangemaster Group, Babcock International, Daily Mail & General Trust, HSBC, Invensys Pension Scheme and Trinity Mirror plc.

National Grid’s Pensions Finance Manager James Hudston, listed a number of areas where PFaroe will benefit the company, specifically:

• Calculate accounting disclosures: National Grid plan to use PFaroe to calculate their accounting disclosures on their pension schemes
• Monitor sponsor’s P&L impact: PFaroe will provide senior management at National Grid with real-time information to forecast the cost of the pension scheme on the company’s P&L and balance sheet
• Help further develop an appropriate de-risking strategy: The platform will enable National Grid to work with our trustees to develop a de-risking strategy
• Drive efficiencies and reduce costs: By providing funding information on 3 different bases, PFaroe gives access to a wide range of information that would otherwise require detailed actuarial input
• Future-proof compliance: The member level analytics on PFaroe will help National Grid to comply not only with current regulations, but also anticipated future reporting requirements being considered by its regulator, OFGEM

James Hudston commented:

“PFaroe will help National Grid with day-to-day operational requirements but more importantly it will help us to make more informed and therefore better decisions.”

Tilly Ross, the Global Head of Pensions at National Grid said:

“National Grid’s mission is to manage our pension schemes safely and efficiently, in the best interests of both consumers and members. This means we need to ‘join things up’. We’ve chosen to work withRiskFirst because the analytics that PFaroe will provide will enable us to have a holistic and responsive approach to managing our pension scheme risk.”

Benjamin Reid, President, RiskFirst Analytics comments:

“Safety and managing risk is at the core of National Grid’s culture so it should be no surprise that they also want to take a more sophisticated approach to managing their pension schemes and associated risks. We’re very pleased that they’ve chosen to work with us and we look forward to helping them to achieve their goals.”