At the same time, IBM is offering staff the "opportunity" to switch into the company's money purchase scheme with the carrot of "enhanced company contribution rates". It is also making changes to existing pensions which will mean smaller inflation-linked increases. However, the company is guaranteeing that increases will be awarded annually for the next 15 years.

7 July 2009: More than 5,000 UK workers could lose their rights to a defined benefit pension scheme under plans being considered by the company. An email to staff from Brendon Riley, IBM’s UK and Ireland general manager, said the pension fund was being re-evaluated because of growing liabilities that were threatening the company’s future performance. If the closure proceeds, it will affect more than a quarter of IBM’s 20,000 UK staff.

17 August 2009: IBM is to brace itself for a backlash from thousands of employees against the company's plans to close its final salary pension schemes to future accrual and to alter the terms of its early retirement scheme.

14 January 2010 See Hansard for parliamentary debate

Comments: 6 May 2008: A high court judgement last Thursday could mean further delays with pensions lawyers Eversheds hoping for the government to make the Financial Assistance Scheme – set up to compensate members of collapsed company pensions – more inclusive. Imperial had a hybrid pension scheme combining elements of defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements. The scheme has assets worth around £120 million and requires around £190 million to meet future liabilities. While it was registered with the FAS in 2005, an ‘underpinning guarantee’ associated with the defined contribution element of the pensions means that most of these benefits do not qualify for compensation under the scheme. And although the money was pooled with defined benefits funds, these benefits were bottom of the pile when the firm went into liquidation and were not entitled to the same levels of protection as defined benefit pensions. ‘The significant finding is for members who thought that they had money purchase pots which normally are kept in tact during wind up,’ said Giles Orton at Eversheds Pension Trustees, representing the case. March 2010 Click here for the website giving the latest status. 

The support services and building company, which employs around 26,900 staff in the UK, will implement the changes for affected members by the end of the year as part of efforts to manage the scheme's deficit, which is expected to be around £250 million.

Within Northern Ireland the company was known by the marketing name ''Richardsons Fertilisers''.

The company is not solvent having been in the hands of the liquidator since October/November 2002, and expects to make a payout to creditors (unsecured) of circa 40%.

However the owners (Irish Government 51% shareholding / Imperial Chemical Industries 49% shareholding) are NOT thought to be insolvent.

August 2009: ITV admits that its "scheme funding" pension deficit ballooned to £646m in December 2008 – more than three times the £178m it stated in March. In March, ITV gave the pension deficit figure for December 2008. In the letter to defined-benefit pension holders, the broadcaster is effectively asking members to forgo 40pc of the inflation-linked increases of their future pension entitlement. ITV said in the letter: "ITV is offering pensioners of the defined-benefit section the opportunity to receive an uplift to their pension now in exchange for giving up future annual increases. Other members of the defined-benefit section will be given this when they retire." The proposal is designed to help ITV cut £75m to £100m from its pension deficit, allows members of the company's final salary scheme to take a higher annual payout in exchange for abandoning their pension's link with the rate of inflation. August 2009:  More than 10,000 members of the ITV final salary pension scheme could receive proposals asking them to accept an increase in the value of their pensions in return for giving up future inflationary increases. ITV admits that its scheme funding deficit rose to £646m in December last year, rather than the £178m that was reported in March. There are 13,332 members of the scheme already receiving a pension – 10,332 of these people have received letters from ITV so far. The 11,572 deferred members and 1,049 who are still contributing to the scheme will receive similar offers when they reach retirement