Comment

AESP NEWS February 2004 In this issue CommentOur Pension Fund ValuationsEDF Energy launches final salary pension schemeOur Pension Fund ValuationsOccupational Pensioners’ Alliance FormedNorthern Pensions Conference 2003Pension BooksParliamentary ActivityBickerstaffe says Pensions Bill is welcome but too little too lateA Reflection2003 Some Recovery - But Little Progress The Scheme AGM and the Group meetings are now over. The annual reports of course coveredthe year ending March 2003. At that time the markets were at a five-year low. The stock marketcrash had reduced the assets in many pension schemes, including our own, by some 30+%. TheAnnual reports made depressing reading. However as 2003 ended the markets had recovered some what and while it is hard to imagineany surpluses being reported in the next triennial valuation lets us hope that the recoverycontinues and gives our trustees something to play with. Each group of course has a mix of liabilities and a different portfolio of investments designed tofund that liability. The extent of the market recovery to bring schemes back into surplus willtherefore vary considerably. It is however probably true to say that we will need to see marketback well into the 5000s before we can look to any further substantial benefit increases again. Some groups now provide much better benefits than others. We will continue to argue that thisis a negation of the principles on which the ...