UK – Business services company Carillion has appointed Legal & General Investment Management and Zurich Financial’s Threadneedle to run two new defined contribution pension schemes.

The move follows the closure of its main defined benefit pension schemes to new members as of April 1 this year.

“Threadneedle Asset Management has been chosen by Carillion to jointly manage two unbundled defined contribution pension schemes, Threadneedle said in a statement.

Carillion confirmed that the other manager is LGIM. The first scheme will be the 2.5 million pound (3.5 million euro) Carillion Retirement Plan. The second will be the new start-up Carillion Pension Plan.

As at December last year Carillion’s various DB schemes had a net deficit under the FRS17 accounting rules of 51 million pounds (71 million euros). They had assets of 704 million pounds.

Carillion re-started its DB pension scheme contributions in December – which it has estimated would cost around 15 million pounds in 2003.

“The pace of change in the DC market has been extremely fast,” said Threadneedle’s head of pensions Emma Douglas. “in spite of the difficult markets, our DC business has continued to thrive since its launch and our continued strong investment performance and commitment to member communication are both important parts of this success.”

Threadneedle manages around 20 billion euros in European pension fund assets, while LGIM runs around 84 billion euros.