The great conundrum of personal finances is this: how does such a large pension pot buy so little pension? The European financial crisis means that a Briton with a pension fund of £100,000 could now receive just £5,000 a year income.
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Many companies feel as if they are a subsidiary of their own pension schemes. Uniq, the renamed Unigate, became exactly that. And now the pension fund is selling the company.
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Some pension funds are so large their sponsoring companies feel like a subsidiary of the scheme. For Uniq, that is exactly what it intends to become and it could be an example for even bigger businesses.
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Perhaps the most significant aspect of British Airways’ (LON:BAY) plan for its pension fund is not that is has the agreement of the unions but that the Pensions Regulator seems to have allowed the airline to rip up its triennial valuation and substitute a better figure.
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The size of the £9bn deficit on the BT pension fund is only a billion below the market value of the telecoms group itself and is bigger than the capitalisation of most FTSE 100 companies. The old joke about a pensions fund with a phone business attached is dangerously true.
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After bankers and MPs, FTSE directors are now the target of public humiliation. Boards that thought the City was their ally have discovered it is their assassin.
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Perhaps Britain’s businesses should add up their spending plans and publish a corporate-sector budget. It is commerce that creates wealth and government that spends it and Alistair Darling’s latest budget depends totally on business reviving the economy.
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At last there is an official inquiry into how the banking crisis happened – but not into punishing those responsible or compensating those that suffered. It is something the government should consider in this year’s budget or next year’s general election.
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The pensions industry has joined the financial regulator in using hindsight to say we should have stored away more during the boom years. The snag is, that’s the time when there seems least need to do it.
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The MPs on the Public Administration select committee have now added their calls for Equitable Life pensioners to be compensated, but who should pay?
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