£8m MG Rover pension settlement reached ten years after firm collapsed
SOME 95 former MG Rover workers are to be given a pensions boost after an £8m settlement was reached.
The Pensions Regulator said following its investigation, MGR Capital Ltd, a company set up to acquire the MG Rover loan book, had agreed to pay the money into the MG Rover Group Senior Pension Scheme.
Those to benefit were mostly managers working for the car manufacturer.
They were amongst 6,000 people to lose their jobs when Longbridge-based MG Rover collapsed in April 2005.
The agreement sees MGR Capital pay £8.085m into the MG Rover Group Senior Pension Scheme.
The payment will be funded from the assets of MGR Capital, a company that is now in liquidation that was reputed to be worth more than £23m when it was wound up. It was formerly based in Longbridge in Birmingham but was latterly registered at an address in Manchester.
The Pensions Regulator said that following a detailed investigation it commenced regulatory action in 2012 by issuing a warning notice seeking the issue of a financial support direction (FSD) to MGR Capital Limited insupport of the MG Rover Group Senior Pension Scheme.
The regulator considered that the firm was the beneficiary of the loss of a profitable opportunity by the scheme’s principal employer and had benefited from the use of that employer’s resources.
“Parties to the regulatory action have now agreed a settlement of the proceedings which has resulted in Capital paying £8.085m to the scheme, following which it is expected that the scheme will be wound up outside the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), with all members receiving retirement benefits in excess of PPF levels,” its ruling states.
The regulator said that in light of this agreement, it is no longer seeking to issue an FSD against MGR Capital.
Peter Beale and John Edwards, two of the ‘Phoenix Four’ directors who ran the MG Rover group when it collapsed were listed as directors of MGR Capital up until March 2011.
Along with Nick Stephenson and John Towers they were disqualified from holding directorships in 2011.
Their disqualification by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, followed a “lengthy and complex investigation” into MG’s collapse.
The men said at the time that they did not accept any allegations of wrong-doing.
The directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings Ltd bought MG Rover, in Birmingham, for £10 in 2000 and paid themselves an estimated £40m in pay and pensions.
