New chairman voted in at AGM

The association’s 2012 AGM in London (Oct 23) was a lively and well-attended affair which saw Tom Brown voted in as the new chairman, following the retirement of David Thompson from the post after nine years.

The meeting opened with a sombre minute’s silence for colleagues and friends who had died during the preceding year, including AMP life president Eric Newson, whose death had been announced only the previous day, and AMP committee man Don Hepburn.
The highest attendance for years then listened intently as guest speakers Paul Vickers (Trinity Mirror company secretary), Joanna Matthews (independent chairman of the MGN trustee board), and Iain Urquhart (TM’s group pensions director) faced some tough questions from the floor.
Subjects covered included the scope and impact of the government’s Pension Protection Fund; the resolution of a problem concerning spouses’ pensions; the timeline and feasibility of the company’s efforts to reduce pension scheme deficits; and the seemingly perpetual question of SERPs/GMP.
The successful launch of the association’s new website and recently published Mirror Pensioner magazine were also widely acknowledged.
It was unanimously agreed to continue the association’s Pension Contingency Fund for another year.

AMP secretary Gerald Mowbray heaped deserved praise on the retiring David Thompson’s head, and thanked him for his many years of stewardship through difficult times.
Former Mirror features editor Brian Bass, a colleague and friend of David’s for nearly 50 years, then paid his own tribute to the departing chairman, and presented a silver photo frame and gift vouchers from the committee and on behalf of the members.
David made a generous and grateful response, wishing us well for the future.
Incoming chairman Tom Brown stressed the need to do away with any “them and us” attitude, since the fortunes of our pension schemes are inextricably linked to the success or otherwise of Trinity Mirror.

“It is incumbent,” he said, “on the company, the trustees and the AMP to work together to ensure pensioners and their dependants are looked after.”
The meeting was followed by a farewell lunch for David at the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. Afterwards he said: “Thank you [Gerald] and all the committee for a wonderful send off as chairman. Thanks, too, for a perfect and very generous presentation gift, and for lunch. As I said at the AGM, it was an honour and a pleasure to work with such a friendly and professional committee of all the talents.”

Eric Newson, AMP’s life president

AMP life president Eric Newson passed away on October 22 in St Luke’s Hospice, Basildon, aged 85.
For more details and full obituary, please go to Farewell.

New chief executive for Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror plc has appointed Simon Fox as chief executive (Sept 2012). Simon, 51, joined Trinity Mirror from HMV, where he has been chief executive since 2006. Simon led HMV through a turbulent period for the entertainment retailing industry and played an invaluable part in securing a profitable future for the company.

Previously he was COE of Kesa Electricals plc and chief executive of Kingfisher’s e-Electricals business. He founded Office World and served as its managing director until joining Kingfisher in 1998. He is currently a non-executive director of Guardian Media Group plc.

David Grigson, chairman of Trinity Mirror, said: “Simon will provide the strategic leadership the company needs. His experience gives him a current and in-depth understanding of how consumers’ habits are changing and the technology that is driving these changes. He is a great team player and leader and his skills and experience perfectly complement those of the existing executive team.”

Simon Fox said: “I am delighted to be joining the Trinity Mirror team. I have been enormously impressed by the people I have met so far. While the Group’s current financial performance is robust, we will need to continue to evolve the business to meet the changing needs of our customers.”

Simon’s base pay will be £500,000 per annum. He will have a bonus potential of 75% of salary of which 50% is payable in cash and 50% in restricted shares (the release of which will be deferred for 3 years). For 2012 the bonus will be subject to a series of stretching operating profit and revenue targets. He will receive a cash allowance in lieu of pension of 15% of salary. He will participate in the new Long Term Incentive Plan that was agreed by shareholders at this year’s AGM. For 2012 he will receive an initial grant of performance shares under the LTIP equivalent in value to 80% of his salary. He will also receive a one-off joining grant of performance shares equivalent in value to 120% of his salary. Vesting of the performance shares will be subject to performance targets that require significant growth in the share price over the performance period.

TM “confused” by Pension Regulator’s position

Comments made about the Pensions Regulator by Trinity Mirror finance director Vijay Vaghela, pictured, were highlighted in wide coverage in both print and web media of Trinity Mirror’s first-half pre-tax profits, which rose to £35.1m from £28.9m a year earlier despite reduced revenues.

 

London Evening Standard, August 2, 2012

Trinity Mirror profits leap
Trinity Mirror shares today soared by a quarter in the wake of strong profits, but the newspaper publisher sparked a fresh row over its pension deficit by attacking regulators for refusing to talk.
Finance director Vijay Vaghela said he has had “no dialogue” since he wrote a letter to the pensions regulator in March, after his decision to defer £70 million of payments into its pension funds.
Vaghela described the lack of response as “confusing”, because “there was a lot of speculation that the pensions regulator would be unhappy”.

The deferral was controversial because Trinity used the cash to pay off loans, raising fears about a potential risk to the pension scheme, which has a £200 million deficit. He is now proceeding on the basis he won’t have to change his plans. But independent expert Ros Altmann of Saga said Trinity should not assume the regulator will not intervene as it moved slowly.

John Ralfe, another expert, said: “The idea that ‘they didn’t come knocking at the door the next day, so we’re OK’ is unrealistic.”
Vaghela did say Trinity Mirror’s pension trustees, who are independent of the company’s management, have had contact with the regulator.
A spokesman for The Pensions Regulator said: “We can confirm that we are in discussions with the pension trustees, but are unable to comment in detail on specific companies or pension schemes due to restrictions under the Pensions Act 2004.”

The i, August 3, 2012
Trinity up amid pension row
Trinity Mirror shares soared by nearly a fifth yesterday in the wake of strong profits, but the newspaper publisher sparked a fresh row over its pension deficit by attacking regulators for refusing to talk.
Vijay Vaghela, the finance director, said he has had “no dialogue” since he wrote a letter to the pensions regulator in March, after his decision to defer £70m of payments into its pension funds.
Mr Vaghela said the lack of response was “confusing”, because “there was a lot of speculation that the pensions regulator would be unhappy”.

Make a date and keep up to date

COME and join your pensioner colleagues at the Association’s annual general meeting.

Topics will include the background to the Company’s reduced annual pension-deficit contributions; information about the insurance buy-in for pre-1992 pensioners; news of the three per cent guaranteed minimum Serps pension; an update on the Pension Protection Fund – you will find out about all these and more at the AGM.

The meeting is on Tuesday, October 23, at the usual place – the St Alban’s Centre, off Gray’s Inn Road, London [Leigh Place, Baldwins Gardens, Holborn, London, EC1N 7AB].

There’s an 11.30am start so that those members who wish to can travel off-peak. The speakers will be:
Paul Vickers, Trinity Mirror’s company secretary
Joanna Matthews, independent chairman of the MGN trustee board
Iain Urquhart, group pensions director
Carol McNamara, the pensions administration manager and secretary to MGN Trustees, will also attend.

The Scottish annual meeting is on Monday, November 5 at the same venue as last year, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail offices in Glasgow [One Central Quay, Glasgow G3 8DA] again with an 11.30am start.
Joanna Matthews and Iain Urquhart will again be the guest speakers.

Trustee election: it was worth standing

By Tom Brown

TRAILING in second in an election, defeated by a two-to-one majority, may seem depressing. But in fact I have a sense of “mission accomplished”.

My reason for standing in the election for ‘C’ Director for Mirror Trustees was not personal, neither for myself nor against Ralph Tomes, who was standing for re-election. Mr Tomes’s long and honourable record of service to the pensioners and the pension funds speaks for itself.

Despite the defeat, I feel my standing for election sent the message about the alarm and anxiety felt by pensioners at the current state of our affairs. It would have been surprising if pensioners had not reacted to the shock announcement of Trinity Mirror’s drastic cut in the company’s deficit-reduction contributions over the next three years, when the pension scheme is already in actuarial deficit.

While the Trustees, the Actuary and the Pensions Regulator have accepted that “the employer put forward a strong business case” for reducing the contributions, the details of that case (for understandable reasons of commercial confidentiality) could not be given to pensioners. And scare stories in the national press, before we received any notification of what was happening, added to our concern.

I still believe that in these circumstances the role of the Trustees in scrutinising, challenging and, where possible, reassuring members will become even more important. So important that there should be pensioner representation in future elections.

It’s difficult to ignore some disquieting aspects of the election result. That only 2,262 votes were cast out of a possible 4,598, a turn-out of 49.2 per cent, is disturbing. It may be that the work of director/trustees is not fully understood but, when the performance of the pension fund clearly affects the living standards of present pensioners as well as the prospects of future pensioners, it is surely worth taking more interest.
As I said in my election statement: “An unfortunate ‘them and us’ mentality does not help. We have to recognise we are all in this together because the well-being of the company is essential for the well-being of the pension schemes.” The former director who wrote that I was a “stooge” candidate, implying that I might not be bound by the promise I signed when I put my name forward to abide by commercial confidentiality and the obligation to act in the best interests of the fund and the pensioners, obviously didn’t get that message.

Your magazine needs you!

THIS year’s main Mirror Pensioner magazine is currently in production. It will be packed with news and information, reports and updates, as well as the inevitable obits. But we’ll also have the usual mix of readers’ stories and recollections, hopefully with photos. If you have a story to tell, or want to share your news, views or boos, please use the “Contact us” panel on this website.

Trinity Mirror PLC – Directorate Change

The Board of Trinity Mirror announced that David Grigson will take up his appointment as Chairman on May 29 [2012], Sir Ian Gibson resigning as a director with effect from May 28. This was to facilitate a smooth transition ahead of the Company’s interim results announcement due this August.

Sir Ian Gibson said: ‘I have enjoyed working with the Trinity Mirror team and can see that with David Grigson as Chairman, they will continue to develop their strategy of maximising the benefits of a strong print portfolio while building a good range of digital businesses.’

David Grigson said: ‘The Board thanks Sir Ian for his leadership over the last six years and I look forward to working more closely with the team.’

Mr Grigson, who is leading the process to identify a new Chief Executive following Sly Bailey’s resignation, was formerly Chief Financial Officer of Reuters Group plc and prior to that of EMAP plc. He is currently Chairman of Creston plc and a non-executive director of Standard Life plc, and Ocado Group plc. He was previously a non-executive director of Carphone Warehouse plc.

Mr Grigson has been a non-executive director of the Company since January this year.

Letter to members, the story so far…

SINCE TRINITY MIRROR announced in March that it was reducing its pension deficit payments, events have been so changeable that the lead-time needed to produce a full newsletter would render it out of date by the time it reached members.

So there is no spring newsletter this year. Instead a letter has been sent to all AMP members explaining the story so far…(read full letter)

AMP has been very busy behind the scenes and various meetings and opinions have been arranged and sought – and the letter to members was considered the quickest and best way to keep members informed.
We normally like to send AMP newsletters to all pensioners and deferred pensioners, whether they are AMP members or not, and we are able to do so because the pensions office usually supplies the pensions address-database to the printers to effect distribution.

As the company generously meets the printing and postal costs of the full colour autumn Mirror Pensioner, courtesy advance proofs are made available so that the pensions office can ensure “compliance” with various rules and legalities.

But the AMP self-finances its spring newsletter and has never supplied advance proofs. It should be noted that advance proofs were requested by the pensions office this spring – for the first time when AMP is paying all the costs involved – before it would supply addresses required for the larger pension scheme membership, i.e. all 5,000-plus pensioners.

No advance proofs have been supplied. So the letter has gone out only to AMP members. And the summer newsletter is likely to follow suit – to AMP members only.