Trevor Matthews, chief executive of UK life and pensions at Standard Life, was this morning forced to apologise to staff for racist comments made in an internal pensions presentation.
At the insurers headquarters in Edinburgh on Monday, Matthews was outlining plans to move members of its final salary pension scheme to a "career average" replacement. The comment was apparently made when Matthews was asked why plans to close the final salary scheme had been buried at the back of a 2006 report on demutualization, and he answered "that's the n****r in the woodpile". It is understood a formal complaint was made following the presentation by a white member of staff with a black partner, which led Matthews to post an apology on the Standard Life internal website in place of...
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