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Just a shameless plug actually for a Zen themed Breakfast Seminar at which I, together with an Actuary and an Investment Manager will give some insights on how to get the best out of your pension advisors.

The Seminar will be held at the offices of GAM, 20 King Street, London SW1Y 6QY on 24th March 2011 from 8am to 10am. It is by invitation only so if you’ld like to come along, for some good food (including sushi – yes, it really is Zen!!) and 3 fascinating speakers, then please contact me. Details are over there by my picture!! Places are limited but it would be great to have some of my blog readers there! So if you are a Trustee of a Scheme or a Corporate Sponsor and would like to know more just get in touch.

A few thoughts on tPR this week and it’s decision to reject the Recovery Plan put forward by Uniq and the scheme Trustees. The proposal in and of itself was not really that remarkable. But clearly tPR saw something in it that they didn’t like – probably the 3 year contibution holiday – and told them to go back to the drawing board. Uniq are now saying that they will have to raise more capital in order to pay off the £400m plus deficit. Not easy when you’re only making £4m pa profit. The difficulty in all this is that since the pension scheme is the firms’ largest creditor, any equity/debt swap deal, (which is almost the only thing left on the table) will mean the trustees potentially commiting a criminal offence in that this will breach the rules on self investment. The law limits trustees to no more that a 5% stake in the Principal Employer’s business. The prosecutor for those offences would be …yup, you guessed it…tPR!!