Britain’s pensions regulator is braced for a battle with BT over its retirement plan, the country’s biggest private sector pension scheme, which could add billions of pounds to a shortfall in savings for tens of thousands of employees and pensioners. The FT has learnt that the regulator has raised questions about the assumptions BT has used in valuing the scheme’s liabilities. It has taken the unusual step of retaining an external actuarial adviser for negotiations with BT over those assumptions, a sign it is braced for tough talks. BT has disclosed a shortfall in the scheme’s assets of £3.97bn at the end of March. But it has yet to finalise an actuarial valuation, which must be done before the regulator can approve any plan to plug the funding gap.

This entry was posted by Paul Murphy on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 3:18 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with bt. Edit this entry.