Boots offloads £300m of its pension pot to a third party
Alliance Boots will shift £300m of its pensions liabilities to a specialist buyout vehicle, it confirmed yesterday.
Pension Corporation will take responsibility for 3,000 defined benefit plans from the firm’s old Alliance UniChem pension scheme, which was closed earlier this year.
An Alliance Boots spokesman said: “As part of the group’s ongoing efforts to ensure long term security of accrued benefits for its defined benefit pension funds, Alliance Boots confirms today that the trustees of the Alliance UniChem pension scheme have insured its members’ past service benefits for future payment with Pension Corporation.
“Alliance Boots continues to work with the trustees of its other pension schemes to ensure that members’ pension obligations continue to be suitably funded and secured.”
Pension Corporation oversees pension fund liabilities of around £7bn and is affiliated to more than 100,000 pension scheme members or former members.
Offloading pension plans to third parties has become increasingly popular in recent years, as firms struggle with deficits left by the tsunami of the financial crisis.