Balfour agrees pension deal

Building giant Balfour Beatty yesterday said it had agreed a deal to plug a £375m hole in its pension fund.

The group has reached an eight-year funding agreement with trustees of the pension scheme to pay a one-off 40m sum and also to double its annual deficit contributions to 48m.

Balfour has more than 40,000 members in its defined benefit pension scheme, which closed to new members in 2007.

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The group had agreed in 2008 to make payments into the scheme of 24m a year, but the funding gap has soared in recent years – from around 114m at the time of the last triennial review in 2007.

Balfour said it had already increased the annual contributions to 36m since April in anticipation of a greater funding need after the latest scheme valuation. Its new agreement will also see contributions rise by inflation-linked increases every April.