Member Article

Top bosses retire with £3 million pension

Directors of the UK’s top 100 companies have amassed pensions worth nearly £1 billion, according to the annual TUC PensionsWatch survey.

The latest analysis of company pensions shows the average executive can retire at 60 on a final salary pension worth nearly £3 million, paying out £168,000 a year. The biggest final salary pension pot in the survey topped £19 million, paying the director nearly £1 million a year, and five directors have a pension worth over £12 million. Final salary pensions have built up almost twice as fast for directors as for ordinary employees - as a result, it takes staff an average of 40 years to reach full pension compared to 20 years for directors.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “Britain’s boardrooms and business lobby groups have failed to tackle upstairs-downstairs style company pensions. If bosses were in the same scheme on the same terms as staff, they would still build up massive pensions compared to employees but they would be fairer. It would also help reduce their company pension deficits. “Investors should demand uniform and open reporting of staff and executive pensions from companies and ensure that the funds of shareholders, including thousands of pension fund members, are not being lavished on luxury pensions that have no link to business performance.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .