Together with its own contribution Provident Financial said it will guarantee that employees in this scheme

Together with its own contribution, Provident Financial said it will guarantee that employees in this scheme see 20 per cent of their salary credited to their pension each year.Provident Financial closed its final-salary scheme to new employees in 2003. He was believed to have been unhappy with the way the venture was moving.The administrators were finalising the sale process of parts of the business yesterday. It is believed Threshers, owned by Terra Firma, Wine Cellar and Whittalls Wines are among the bidders for the leases of Unwins’ shops.. Provident Financial, the specialist lender, has become the latest company to try to squeeze its existing employees out of their final-salary pension scheme, forcing them to double their monthly contributions to 14 per cent of their salary if they wish to stay in the plan.

The news comes days after Rentokil Initial, the pest control group, announced plans to close its final-salary scheme to members, sparking a backlash from employees and unions.
Provident Financial announced last week that it would eliminate the £133m deficit in its pension scheme by the middle of next year, beginning with a £31m payment this month. While it also promised investors that it would stabilise the cost and lower the volatility of its staff pension provision, it failed to add that part of its strategy included a move to try to muscle its employees out of its final-salary scheme.Thegeneral secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, said: “Unions have demonstrated that they are prepared to sit down and have meaningful negotiations when major changes are proposed to company pension schemes. DM Private Equity, which bought Unwins for £32m in March, said on Tuesday that it plans to sue former directors and shareholders as well as the company’s former auditors, Grant Thornton, after it allegedly discovered a £13.5m hole in the company’s accounts.
Unwins was put into administration late on Monday, after its bankers, HBOS, pulled the plug on the company. The following day, it announced it would be making the vast majority of the 1,900 workforce redundant.However, sources close to the former Unwins board said DM was made perfectly aware of the state of the business when it bought it, and was warned that Unwins would need a cash injection and a restructuring to restore it to its former glory.DM claims that after completing the deal and getting a closer look at the books, it discovered that Unwins’ net assets were worth some £10.8m less than they had been led to believe, while accounting errors had produced a further £2.4m of unexpected costs.The former board, however, is believed to contend that after the purchase, DM revalued Unwins as though it was no longer a going concern, the major reason as to the discrepancy in the two sides’ numbers.David Massey – one of the key players in the Unwins bid – quit the board three months ago, six months after joining it. Institutional investors made it clear to RBS that they did not want the list of potential candidates confined to Scots.

It is hoped that as an external appointment and a non-Scot, Mr Whittaker will be better placed to bring a strong, fresh voice to the RBS board. His predecessor, Fred Watt, who announced in June that he was leaving to spend more time with his family, was seen by some in the City as too subservient to Sir Fred Goodwin, the chief executive.RBS, the UK’s No 2 bank, suffers one of the lowest ratings of any European bank. The thunderous applause that greeted its transformational acquisition of a flabby National Westminster Bank in 2000 has long since turned to a slow handclap amid deep misgivings over RBS’s spending spree, notably in the US.Its lowly share price has little to do with performance and more with worries that RBS may make more acquisitions, despite repeated assurances from Sir Fred that none are on the cards.Shareholders are looking for a firm commitment from the bank to return funds, probably through a share buy-back programme.Ian Gordon, at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, said: “Guy Whittaker’s appointment is good news.”. He leaves the troubled drug maker AstraZeneca, where he is chief executive, at the end of this year. Sir Tom is also a non-executive director of the oil giant BP.
The appointment of Mr Whittaker was welcomed by the City as something of a departure for the Edinburgh-based bank. Sir Tom’s elevation from deputy chairman was widely expected, and will take effect from April. Royal Bank of Scotland said yesterday the Ayrshire-born Sir Tom McKillop will replace George Mathewson as chairman of the bank, and Guy Whittaker, the treasurer of Citigroup, will become its finance director.

They are something of which we can be very proud.” * A Better Place charity auction: bid now! * A Better Place: Donate now! * A Better Place: Full appeal links.. As Boniface Mono, the deputy headteacher of Kimu Charitable School, just half a mile away from Salaama and also supported by Education Action, put it: “People who come to the camps have suffered trauma They have anger in their hearts and sadness. In January, a peace agreement between the Khartoum government and the former rebel army of the south, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), heralded a fragile peace. But so far just five families have actually made the trip by river steamer down the Nile from the deserts of the north to the lush tropical zones of the south. In the meantime, however, Salaama school must struggle with day-to-day survival, juggling its meagre resources in what one teacher called the ” silent war” of official disapproval and forced clearances.