Financial Market Instability

Members may be aware of the recent volatility in financial markets and be wondering if there are any implications for the distribution of remaining Plan assets to eligible members as outlined in our announcement ‘Update September 2022 – next steps’.

We have of course already secured benefits with the vast majority of the overall Plan assets (over 98%) in transactions which occurred in 2018 and 2020. These were mainly secured with Legal & General, but some members were able to take transfers to alternative providers and some were able to choose lump sum payments.

In terms of the relatively small residual funds, we had already taken steps to sell some government bonds and hold cash instead. This does not mean that we are fully isolated against market movements because, as for nearly all pension schemes, we still hold some government bonds whose value will have fallen recently.

Trustee Board changes …

We would like to advise all members that David Davies retired from his position as Chairman of the Trustee Board on October 31, 2019 and has been replaced by Clive Gilchrist who was already serving on the Trustee Board in his capacity as a company nominated trustee.

We are sure that all Plan members would like to join the Board in expressing our profound thanks and gratitude to David who has worked with great energy and dedication since he was appointed in 2007 and has successfully steered us through 10+ years of international insolvency and litigation proceedings following Nortel Networks worldwide demise in 2009.

Clive, who is a professional independent trustee, has a lot of experience with Nortel’s UK Pension Scheme and represented BESTrustees on the Board from 1995 until 2007 before re-joining the Board in 2008 as a company appointee. We look forward to Clive guiding us through the process of finalising the distribution of member benefits and the eventual wind-up of Nortel Networks UK Pension Trust Limited.

Please follow this link for details of all current members of the Trustee Board