29 June 2006
Last year, 60% of companies made special pension contributions,
over and above normal or statutory contributions, to help plug
their scheme deficits, according to a survey of FTSE 350 companies
by Mercer Human Resource Consulting and The Association of
Corporate Treasurers.
The greatest driver for these special pension payments were
scheme-specific funding requirements (30%), whereby companies have
to top up under-funded schemes to reduce their deficits, and
general risk mitigation (25%). Few companies (7%) made special
contributions purely to reduce their Pension Protection Fund (PPF)
levy or for tax reasons (7%).
