The pension promises of more than 16,000 former and present employees of the old Racal Electronics and other British technology companies are being switched to an insurer under a £2.9 billion buyout deal.
Thales, the French defence group, said it was paying an upfront £850 million to get the deal over the line, enabling it to sever all future responsibility for paying promised pensions to members of its UK defined-benefit scheme.
Favourable movements in bond yields have triggered a widespread scramble by employers to offload legacy pension schemes, which have long since been closed to new accrual and are seen as a costly, volatile distraction.
Rothesay Life is picking up the assets and liabilities of the Thales UK scheme. The insurer said the deal was
