There has recently been a lot of media coverage about the financial stresses placed on pension schemes and in particular those who use liability-driven investment (LDI) as part of their investment strategy.

A feature of LDI is that schemes may need to sell some assets to raise cash when the yields on gilts, also known as government bonds, rise.

These yields rose recently and so this placed varying demands upon the Group’s four Sections, as a result of the need to make these targeted sales of some investments. However, doing this placed no undue stress upon any of the Sections.

There has been no impact on their overall funding positions, as relevant to the long-term security of members’ benefits; if anything, the Group Trustees expect the net increase in gilt yields over this period to be generally beneficial to the overall, or long-term, funding position of each Section.

There has been no impact to the ability to support ongoing payment of pensioner’s benefit payments.

The Group Trustees will continue to monitor the situation closely as market conditions continue to evolve, taking into account the information and advice provided by their professional advisers.