Tesco's FD defines the benefits of its career-average pension scheme.

PositionRETIREMENT PLANNING - Andrew Higginson

Retail giant Tesco has pledged to set a best-practice example in response to the debate on tackling the UK's pensions crisis.

Speaking at a recent CIMA lecture, Andrew Higginson FCMA, finance and strategy director at Tesco, said that his company was committed to achieving long-term financial stability for its work force. Unlike many businesses that had resorted to money-purchase schemes, Tesco had formulated a defined-benefit pension based on individuals' average salary over their careers. Higginson said that the scheme was "right for our business today" and that the company had paid an extra 200m [pounds sterling] into it in 2005.

Higginson told the audience at CIMA's biennial Anthony Howitt lecture in London that the decision was part of his firm's drive to attract and keep talented employees. "As more companies replace defined-benefit with money-purchase schemes, we expect the package to improve our ability to recruit and retain the best people," he said, adding that Tesco's "pension builder" scheme was both flexible and affordable. At the same time as offering staff financial certainty in their retirement, it reduced the company's exposure to the risks inherent in a final-salary scheme, Higginson said.

Tesco is not alone. In the March issue of...

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