18 February 2010
A pension deal agreed by the UK arm of the Reader's Digest
Association (RDA UK), its pension scheme trustees and the Pension
Protection Fund (PPF) to address a pension scheme deficit of
£125m has been rejected by the Pensions Regulator, and RDA UK
has now filed for insolvency.
The proposed deal involved injecting £10.9m in cash and
transferring a third of the British business's equity to the
pension scheme trustees. The pension scheme would then be
transferred to the PPF.
However, an RDA statement yesterday said: "The decision by the
board of RDA UK to place the UK company into an orderly insolvency
process follows the recent decision by the UK Pensions Regulator
that it would not support an agreement between RDA UK, the trustees
of its pension scheme and the UK PPF to settle a longstanding
pension scheme liability."
