UK - The MG Rover group pension scheme, with over £400m (€589m) in assets, is the first major scheme to be formally transferred to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

Along with another five smaller schemes this means a significant asset inflow into the PPF, which stood at £305m before the Rover transfer.

The UK pension lifeboat expects its fund to swell to £2bn in the course of the financial year with another 65 schemes scheduled for transfer. By 2009 the fund is expected to have grown to £5bn.

The pension scheme of the collapsed car firm MG Rover, with over 6,000 members, was one of the first schemes to come under PPF administration when the protection fund began its work in 2005.

Both the PPF and Independent Trustee Services, which managed the MG Rover scheme through the transition period, praised the co-operation in the transfer phase.

Six schemes transferred to the PPF in March 2007. These are:

- MG Rover (car manufacturer): 6,228 members; of those, 1,267 will immediately receive PPF payments starting March 30;
- Solid State Logic (audio and video technology): 167 members, immediate payments: five
- Fiege Merlin (van and tractor supplier): 127 members, immediate payments: 27;
- Bristol Community Sport (operator of swimming pools and sport centres): 151 members, immediate payments: five;
- Beaujersey (producer of knitted fabrics): 88 members, immediate payments: 21;
- Motor Industry Pension Plan - Pearce Motor Section (retail motor trader): 33 members, immediate payments: five

These six join the three schemes already in the PPF with the first transfer having been made in December:

- Chilton Scotland Pension Scheme (weft-knit fabric manufacturer): 31 members
- Padiham Retirement Benefits Plan (lightweight fabric producer): nine members
- BDH Retirement Benefits Scheme (plastic producer): six members

Over the last two years the PPF also assessed another four schemes which have not needed to be transferred:

- UPSU Trading Limited section of the Student Unions Superannuation Scheme
- Accordis section of the Akzo Nobel (CPS) Pension Scheme
- Cambridge United Football Club section of The Football League Ltd Pension and Life Assurance Scheme
- MG Rover Contract Related Pension Scheme