Companies face having to add billions of pounds to their pensions liabilities under plans to be unveiled by the regulator to force them to use more realistic projections of how long workers will live after they retire.
The standard the Pensions Regulator is to propose next week is tougher than that used by 99.5 per cent of UK schemes and will increase stated liabilities for companies by 6 to 8 per cent, even for those already adopting the most prudent standard now in use. For roughly a third of all schemes, the increase in disclosed liabilities will be as much as 15 to 20 per cent and could force them to set aside more cash to fill shortfalls.
In general terms, the proposed standard for those retiring today at 65 assumes that men – the overwhelming majority of those in final salary schemes – will live to at least age 89, roughly two years longer than the presumption in more than half of current UK company schemes. Every additional year of life expectancy increases liabilities by 3 to 4 per cent.

Die Gewerkschaften haben sich vehement gegen
Auch ein Staatsbediensteter muss damit rechnen, dass die Bedingungen seiner Anstellung und seiner Vorsorge verändert werden können. Die Staatsgarantie, welche die Unterdeckung der Pensionskasse abdeckt, ist kein wohlerworbenes Recht und nicht sakrosankt.
The Belgian finance ministry has created confusion about the status of Nestlé’s pension funds after announcing the firm is transferring its pensions assets to a pan-European OFP. Didier Reynders, Belgian finance minister, told the local media during a press lunch Nestlé was opening an organisation for financing pensions (OFP) which would see the food manufacturer’s pension funds transferred to Belgium. But Jean-Pierre Steiner, chief executive of Nestlé Fonds de Pension, told IPE no new fund was being erected, and “no Nestlé pension funds will be transferred to Belgium”.
Comme pour les conseils d’administration, le législateur entend responsabiliser davantage les conseils de fondation. La réforme structurelle de la prévoyance professionnelle prévoit des directives claires sur le gouvernement d’entreprise des caisses de pension. Roland Sauter, Directeur Audit Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Bâle.
Swisscanto berichtet in ihren Institutional News im 1. Quartal 2008 u.a. über die Ergebnisse ihrer Anlagestiftung im Rahmen des Watson Wyatt-