Statement clarifying media report on Visteon UK Pension Plan
Independent Trustee Services (ITS) is a Trustee Director of Visteon UK Pension Trustees Ltd, and would like to make clear a number of points in relation to an article in the 19th April 2010 edition of Pensions Week entitled "Crucial Facts of Visteon case emerge".
The article generally creates the misleading impression that the Trustee acted inappropriately in relation to transfers of assets and liabilities from the Visteon Plan. These transfers were made by the Trustee of the Plan directly to the trustees of the Ford and VES pension schemes, and did not amount to a transfer from the Plan 'to other companies' or the Plan 'handing cash to its former parent company Ford and VES'. The various pension transfers to which the article refers came about as a result of the transfer of employment for certain employees from Visteon UK Limited (VUK) to either Ford or Visteon Engineering Services (VES).
The purpose of the pension transfers was to transfer the liabilities of the employees in question to one of the Ford pension schemes and/or the VES Pension Scheme as appropriate.
The assets referred to in the article were calculated by the Plan's actuary with reference to the liabilities that were being transferred. The assets were transferred on a basis which was intended to cause no reduction in security for the remaining members of the Plan. Indeed, the net effect of the transfers was actually favourable to the funding position of the Plan as the liability to provide benefits for the transferring employees was taken over by one of the Ford pension schemes or the VES Pension Scheme (as appropriate).
The Pensions Regulator is aware of the full circumstances of the transfers. The Trustee and VUK complied with their duty to inform the Pensions Regulator about the transfers and did so in the notifiable events documents to which the Pensions Week article refers, in accordance with s. 69 of the Pensions Act 2004.
The Trustee and the Pensions Regulator are very concerned that sensitive information from confidential documents has been both published and misinterpreted in the press. It is known that the Trustee has registered a claim in the Chapter 11 proceedings of Visteon Corporation and anything which could prejudice that claim could ultimately harm the interests of the individual members of the Plan.
The Trustee has requested Pensions Week to print an appropriate correction at the earliest available opportunity.
Independent Trustee Services Ltd
22nd April 2010