The Prudential is heading back to the pensions buy out environment with a deal worth around GBP350 million to pick up some of the Rank pension scheme.
The deal is expected to be confirmed next week when the interim results of the Prudential will be announced. Under the terms of the agreement the Prudential will take on the duty of paying the pensions of existing recipients of pensions through Rank.
There are around 10,000 people currently on the books,all of whom will in future receive their pension payments from the Prudential. This is a market that they used to be strong in but moved away from a couple of years ago to focus on their core business.
As the cost of living goes higher and higher in the UK so more people are looking at retiring to a different country say Saga Insurance.
A Saga Insurance spokeswoman explained that currently less than 1 percent of those retiring move abroad in order to cut their living costs, though there has been much more interest in the idea recently. It will help those about to retire that their property values are at all time highs. This gives them a good base from which to set up home abroad.
There are many factors to consider when living abroad said the Saga Insurance spokeswoman, with costs being just a part of the equation. Lifestyles are very different overseas and it can sometimes be difficult giving up things that have been part of life for so long.
The investment management team at Legal and General is currently looking at the future of pension schemes, concerned by the many different rules and regulations that are being placed on them.
Since 2001 there have been over 400 different pension regulations said a Legal and General spokesman, and there is concern that they are making it more difficult to attract people into company pension schemes because of all the red tape that now seems to surround them.
What a Legal and General pension customer wants is to understand the basics of how it works and have a pretty good idea of the final return when it comes to retirement. The many different regulations are moving further away from this basic concept and are making things much harder to explain in laymans terms.
