The Times
June 3, 2009
Miles Costello
BP, the oil and gas company, is preparing to shut its $18 billion (£11 billion) UK final salary pension scheme to new members, in the latest blow to generous retirement provision for Britains workforce.
BP was one of the few FTSE 100 blue-chip companies to maintain a final salary scheme for new recruits. These schemes offer retiring employees a pension based on their final salary at retirement.
The group told the 69,000 members of its UK pension fund yesterday that, from next April, new employees will be offered a money purchase scheme. These riskier schemes offer a payout based on the performance of investment markets.
BP will contribute up to 15 per cent of a workers salary to the new scheme, with a minimum of 5 per cent going into the fund. Staff can choose to take the difference in cash. It will also offer free health insurance to staff, a first for the company.
A BP spokesman said that the move was part of efforts by Tony Hayward, the chief executive, to reduce overheads. By shutting the scheme to new joiners, BP will eliminate some of the financial risks of paying out generous pensions as life expectancy continues to increase.
He said that BP should begin to make significant savings after ten years. Mr Hayward added that the pension scheme was fully funded and capable of meeting all its obligations to pensioners. Existing scheme members will be unaffected.
BPs scheme has 12,219 serving members, 19,939 deferred claimers and 38,974 pensioners and dependants.
Royal Dutch Shell, BPs main rival, continues to offer a final salary scheme to its UK workforce, but BPs move is likely to prompt fresh speculation that Shell will follow its competitors lead.
British companies have been shutting their final salary schemes in recent years as they struggle to maintain payouts to a workforce with far longer lifespans and as tumbling investment markets erode the strength of their schemes.
In April Aon Limited, the British element of Aon Corporation, the American pension consultant, halved its contribution level to its money purchase scheme in a cost-cutting measure expected to spark a rash of copycat moves.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
