Friends Prov to close DB scheme - papers 4th July

According to the paper, Friends Provident, whose pension deficit is only £16m under the FRS17 accounting standard, will also require existing members of the pension scheme to choose between higher contributions to retire at 60 or reduce contributions if they want to retire at 65. Although in 2003 Friends Provident was one of the first companies to use derivatives to hedge against inflation and interest rate changes, a spokesman said the company was reluctant to continuing exposing shareholders to the effects of longer life expectancy. However, Amicus, Britain’s biggest private sector un...