Investment & Retirement Solutions are proud to count a number of former and current Rolls Royce employees among our clients.
Whilst our Rolls Royce clients are dispersed around the UK (and further afield), we have significant concentrations around Rolls Royce’s historically important Hucknall and Derby sites.
Rolls Royce announced a fundamental restructuring in 2018 and have been reshaping and refocusing their business since then. However, during the ‘first wave lockdown’, in response to the collapse in global aviation, Rolls Royce announced that it would need to cut some additional 9000 jobs, with the civil aviation teams being particularly exposed to this cost-cutting.
In June Rolls Royce revealed that more than 3,000 workers had applied for voluntary redundancy.
Yesterday, 28th October, a tripartite statement was issued by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Pensions Regulator and the Money and Pensions Service reiterating and warning that:
“transferring out of a defined-benfit pension scheme is unlikely to be in the best interests of most consumers”
Unusually, this statement has been issued with the Rolls Royce gold-plated pension scheme (a Rolls-Royce of pension schemes) being specifically in mind, amid fear of Rolls Royce workers succumbing to a British Steel-esque pension transfer scandal.
Sometimes accused of acting too late, it is reassuring to note that with this targeted intervention, the city regulator is trying to close the stable door before the horse has run away.
We understand that following a surge in transfer value requests, Rolls Royce proactively alerted the Financial Conduct Authority that the restructuring of their business might be attracting the wrong type of attention.
Anecdotally, we understand that the Pensions Regulator is supporting the Rolls Royce Trustees in their role to protect scheme members which we see as another positive move; even if this manifests as protecting scheme members from their own catastrophic decision making.
At Investment & Retirement Solutions our clients tell us they appreciate our plain-speaking, so our contribution to this conversation is:
- We’ve dealt with the Rolls Royce pension team many times over the years and commend their professionalism
- We commend Rolls Royce for notifying the Financial Conduct Authority of the “very high number of transfer payment requests”, and their fear hat many of the transfer requests are arriving with missing information and unreadable documents (never a sign of a job being done professionally)
- Our golden rule of financial planning is particularly relevant to pension transfers: “if it seems to good to be true, it probably is”
