Deficits

Northern Foods will contribute a "proportion" of the £6.4m sale of loss-making frozen food products manufacturer Dalepak to Irish Food Processors Group to help fund its £146.4m scheme deficit.

US - The recession and an ageing population will force US social security to pay out more than it takes in for the first time ever this year.

The part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland has cut its pension costs by £144m compared with the first half of last year.

The £16bn Barclays Bank UK Retirement Fund's IAS19 deficit rocketed to more than £4bn in the first half of 2010.

Premier Foods aims to close its defined benefit pension schemes to new members by April, next year in a bid to tackle a £431m combined deficit.

Part-nationalised banking group Lloyds and its subsidiary HBOS recouped a combined £1.44bn through changes to pension arrangements this year.

UK - FTSE100 companies dramatically upped pension contributions last year to a record £17.5bn ($27.8bn), data from Lane Clark & Peacock reveals.

FTSE100 companies dramatically upped pension contributions last year to a record £17.5bn, data from LCP reveals.

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey will close the £567m George Wimpey Staff Pension Scheme to future accrual on 31 August, this year.

Volatility in global equities and falling corporate bond yields in the last two weeks of June cancelled out much of the growth achieved by schemes over the past six months, Mercer says.