Squashed: Britvic looks to cut final salary pensions
Drinks producer Britvic is planning to slash the money it pays out to 6,000 members of its final salary pension scheme.
The FTSE 250 firm, which produces Robinsons soft drinks, is looking for court approval to stop measuring inflation according to the retail prices index (RPI), and instead switch to the consumer prices index (CPI).
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The RPI is currently 2.8 per cent, while CPI is 1.9 per cent, meaning retired workers could receive as much as £12,000 less than originally thought during retirement according to analysis by Unison. The proposed cut would affect around 6,000 former employees and 250 people still working at the company.
Britvic, which employs 4,700 people, makes soft drinks under its own name but also operates brands including Tango, R White’s lemonade, J20 and Pepsi.
Switching from RPI to CPI for pension calculations saves companies money, but has proved controversial. Last year, BT tried to make a similar move for 80,000 pension fund members, but its application was thrown out by the High Court. However, pensions are calculated using CPI for public sector jobs.
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Britvic warned last month that revenue dipped in the third quarter of the year due to a “more challenging” market. Shares are up 7.2 per cent from the start of 2019, valued at 867p.
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