Greg Meekings
Reuters pension funds resume discretionary increases
Friday 16 March 2012
Pension increases will be paid in line with increases in the UK Retail Prices Index up to a maximum of 2.5 per cent for each of the next 10 years. The increases will be backdated to 1 January 2012, though they are unlikely to reach pensioners before May or June due to payroll deadlines.
Friday’s announcement by trustees of Reuters Pension Fund (RPF) and Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme (SPS) followed completion of negotiations with Thomson Reuters on the funds’ December 2010 actuarial valuations. The negotiations also included a fresh look at the parent company guarantees for the two defined benefit schemes, which are closed to new members.
Greg Meekings, pictured, chairman of both funds, said: “I am pleased to say that we have maintained our prudent valuation assumptions and we have agreed a plan with the company to make good the deficit at 31 December 2010 over the next eight years. We have also agreed a substantial increase in the level of Parent Company Guarantee…” The guarantee provides additional support from Thomson Reuters in certain circumstances where the principal employer, Reuters Ltd, is no longer able to support the funds.
The additional discretionary increases are consistent with those provided in pensions being earned by current Thomson Reuters employees who are members of the funds. The increases are being funded by the company, which is also funding the deficit incurred since the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Meekings described the arrangement regarding pensioner discretionary increases as satisfactory and “a generous settlement”. He thanked Tom Glocer, who stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2011, and the Thomson Reuters management team.
“Tom stood by his commitment that the company would find a solution to the provision of discretionary pension increases from the Fund. I’m sure we would like to wish him all the best for his future now that he has retired,” he told fund members.
Pensioners have been vocal in campaigning for restoration of discretionary increases, whose absence over much of the past decade has eroded the value of their pensions.
The Pension Review Group formed in 2004 by RPF and SPS members concerned about the performance of the two funds says that since 2002 the purchasing power of their pensions has fallen by 23.3 per cent. For 2008-2011, Reuters pensioners would have needed an increase of up to 14.4 per cent to cover inflation.
The PRG welcomed the new agreement, which it said provides a degree of certainty of an increase for the next 10 years.
“Obviously, we would have hoped for larger increases each year when the September inflation figures are higher than 2.5 per cent, and also compensation for the loss of value to our pensions over the years when there has been no increase,” PRG chairman Angela Dean said. “However, we have to be realistic and recognise the tough economic climate in which our pension fund has to be managed.”
Meekings, in a talk to The Reuter Society on 6 March, endorsed the contribution made by the PRG over the last eight years, saying “the PRG has served us all very well” and adding that it was “a very valuable group”.
Dean said: “We should also acknowledge the achievement of the chairman of the Trustees, Greg Meekings, and his colleagues on the managing committees in reaching this settlement, as well the support from Thomson Reuters, and in particular from Tom Glocer, to enable a fair deal to be concluded.
“The PRG will not be disbanding, however, and will be monitoring pensions issues both within Thomson Reuters and trends externally.”
RPF, founded in 1893, is one of the oldest pension schemes and by far the larger of the two Reuters plans with net assets of £1,163,753,000 on 31 December 2010. On that date it had 7,774 members comprising 703 active members making contributions and accumulating benefits; 5,450 deferred members no longer making contributions but with benefits left in the fund for payment at a later date; and 1,576 pensioner members, including dependants of members who have died, receiving a pension.
SPS net assets were £178,252,000. The scheme had 191 members, of whom 12 were active members, 62 deferred members, and 117 pensioner members.
● SOURCE Reuters Pension Fund | Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme | Pension Review Group
Pension talks 'constructive and positive'
Tuesday 15 November 2011
The Pension Review Group has reacted with cautious optimism to a letter from the chairman of Reuters’ two UK pension funds in which he says discussions with Thomson Reuters on a new pension agreement have been “constructive and positive”.
The comments by Greg Meekings, chairman of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme, were in response to an earlier letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean in which she underlined pensioners’ continuing concerns about the declining value of their pensions. RPF, the larger of the two funds, has nearly 8,000 members.
With discretionary annual increases paid in only three of the last nine years the real value of RPF pensions has dropped substantially because of inflation, the PRG said. The group calculates that pensioners would need an increase of 16.7 per cent to bring the value of pensions back to the levels of early 2003. The rise needed will jump to 23.3 per cent if no increase is awarded in January.
Discussions between RPF, SPS and the company aim to produce a new pensions agreement effective from 31 March 2012. The current agreement allows for annual inflation increases only if the fund is in surplus. Both the RPF and the SPS are currently in deficit. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006.
The PRG said it was encouraged by comments made last December by chief executive Tom Glocer expressing his concern about the position of UK pensioners and calling on those responsible to find a way of resolving the problem, both now and in the future. “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world,” Glocer said in a talk to The Reuter Society. “We’ll do whatever we need to do.”
The PRG met last month to consider Meekings’ letter and decided to await the outcome of current discussions before taking any further action, in the hope that positive comments so far would translate into an agreement which would guarantee an annual increase in pensions.
The group was established in 2004 by retired staff of Reuters. Its objective is to restore inflation-linked increases and bring certainty to pensioners in future by ensuring there is a sound agreement in place that protects the value of pensions and the security of the pension fund.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
The comments by Greg Meekings, chairman of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme, were in response to an earlier letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean in which she underlined pensioners’ continuing concerns about the declining value of their pensions. RPF, the larger of the two funds, has nearly 8,000 members.
With discretionary annual increases paid in only three of the last nine years the real value of RPF pensions has dropped substantially because of inflation, the PRG said. The group calculates that pensioners would need an increase of 16.7 per cent to bring the value of pensions back to the levels of early 2003. The rise needed will jump to 23.3 per cent if no increase is awarded in January.
Discussions between RPF, SPS and the company aim to produce a new pensions agreement effective from 31 March 2012. The current agreement allows for annual inflation increases only if the fund is in surplus. Both the RPF and the SPS are currently in deficit. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006.
The PRG said it was encouraged by comments made last December by chief executive Tom Glocer expressing his concern about the position of UK pensioners and calling on those responsible to find a way of resolving the problem, both now and in the future. “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world,” Glocer said in a talk to The Reuter Society. “We’ll do whatever we need to do.”
The PRG met last month to consider Meekings’ letter and decided to await the outcome of current discussions before taking any further action, in the hope that positive comments so far would translate into an agreement which would guarantee an annual increase in pensions.
The group was established in 2004 by retired staff of Reuters. Its objective is to restore inflation-linked increases and bring certainty to pensioners in future by ensuring there is a sound agreement in place that protects the value of pensions and the security of the pension fund.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
Pensioners press for automatic inflation increases
Monday 12 September 2011
The Pension Review Group is once again focusing attention on its campaign to win automatic inflation rises for all Reuters pensioners.
It has contacted the chairman of the Reuters Pension Fund trustees, Greg Meekings, and requested that members should be consulted before he signs a new deal with Thomson Reuters, which he expects to do some time in the next six months.
“Our concern is that pensioners will be presented with a solution … which may not be acceptable to us," the group’s chair Angela Dean said in a letter to Meekings.
Pensioners have had increases in only three of the last nine years, and the value of their pensions has been eroded by almost 20 per cent because of inflation.
A growing number of the 8,000 members of the RPF are becoming extremely elderly and frail, living on small pensions and facing real hardship as inflation bites into what little they get, the group said.
Thomson Reuters is one of the few major companies in Britain to have suspended inflation rises for its final salary pensioners. Most have inflation-proofing written into their pension fund rules.
CEO Tom Glocer has expressed sympathy for the plight of Reuters pensioners. “We … look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements,” he wrote to the PRG last year.
The rules of the current pensions agreement, established in 2006, allow for discretionary increases only when the Fund is in surplus. That agreement should have ended in 2010 but will remain in force until a new deal is negotiated with the company, which should be by next March.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
It has contacted the chairman of the Reuters Pension Fund trustees, Greg Meekings, and requested that members should be consulted before he signs a new deal with Thomson Reuters, which he expects to do some time in the next six months.
“Our concern is that pensioners will be presented with a solution … which may not be acceptable to us," the group’s chair Angela Dean said in a letter to Meekings.
Pensioners have had increases in only three of the last nine years, and the value of their pensions has been eroded by almost 20 per cent because of inflation.
A growing number of the 8,000 members of the RPF are becoming extremely elderly and frail, living on small pensions and facing real hardship as inflation bites into what little they get, the group said.
Thomson Reuters is one of the few major companies in Britain to have suspended inflation rises for its final salary pensioners. Most have inflation-proofing written into their pension fund rules.
CEO Tom Glocer has expressed sympathy for the plight of Reuters pensioners. “We … look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements,” he wrote to the PRG last year.
The rules of the current pensions agreement, established in 2006, allow for discretionary increases only when the Fund is in surplus. That agreement should have ended in 2010 but will remain in force until a new deal is negotiated with the company, which should be by next March.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
