Newsletter No. 12

 HALCROW PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION 

 Newsletter No 12 : December 2015

You have been sent this newsletter because you may be a member of the Halcrow Pension Scheme. If you are not a member then please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email to remove your name from the mailing list or email the webmaster at halcrowpensioners dot org dot uk to remove your name.

2015 Annual General Meeting

43 members participated in the HPA Annual General Meeting was held in the HPA forum between 12th and 20th April 2015. The treasurer reported that over £4,000 had now been accumulated in the bank account. A number of motions were passed either unanimously or with large majorities. The AGM minutes are available here. All members of the existing committee confirmed that they were willing to continue and Martin Harrison was elected to the committee.

At a committee meeting held on 25th April Stephen Brichieri-Colombi stood down as chairman but was reappointed for a further year while Martin Harrison was appointed as deputy chairman. The 2015 committee is therefore:

 CH2M Hill Financial Position

Since the last newsletter CH2M Hill has obtained $200M external investment from Apollo Global Management and the stock price has risen substantially since February 2015. You can view the current stock price data here.

Funding of HPS (click on heading for a more detailed discussion)

The HPA committee is concerned about the non-publication of various reports including the 2011 HPS review, the 2014 HPS annual report, the 2014 Halcrow Group annual report and the 2014 CH2M Hill annual report. We understand that a CH2M management response to a question at a Burderop Park staff meeting in late June 2015 indicated that they expected to resolve the pension scheme issue by the end of September. Published CH2M documents acknowledge the pension schemes inherited with the acquisition of Halcrow as an ongoing liability. This information suggests an ongoing dialogue between the HPS trustees and the company management and our suspicion is that the key issue is the level of funding expected from the company.

The Pensions Regulator will expect to see an agreed recovery plan to restore financial health to HPS but the company, understandably, would not want to commit to a level of payments substantially in excess of such profits as Halcrow might be expected to generate but appears to be willing to continue contributions at the current level. Ultimately, such an arrangement will be unsustainable as the HPS reserves start to be drawn down as the result of an increase in the pensions in payment. Pension schemes with liabilities that make, or potentially make, companies bankrupt may end up with the Pension Protection Fund and the consequences for pension scheme members are discussed here.

Correspondence with HPS Trustees

HPA has written to the HPS trustees on several occasions to seek information or clarification. Replies are not received directly but via the trustees' Notes of Meeting for Members usually prefixed by "some members have asked" or similar wording. So, if you have ever wondered who asks those questions, now you know.

Membership Recruitment Campaign

In October 2015 HPA sent an email to people with Halcrow email addresses that had been gleaned off the internet. This resulted in increased awareness of HPA and some new members. Nonetheless, we still need word-of-mouth to further increase the awareness of HPA's existence so, if you have retained contact with former colleagues who might be members of the Halcrow Pension Scheme, then please make them aware of HPA's existence (use the link at the bottom of the email newsletter to send a copy to anyone else). It is better that they get informed more than once rather than not at all. If changes to the HPS are proposed then there may be a limited time available to react.

Membership Database

One of the motions passed at the AGM was to collect location data for members in order to identify which MPs might be best targeted if there is need for their support for HPA members. At the time of the AGM it was thought that postcode data could be matched to parliamentary constituencies. However, further research revealed that there was an imperfect match between the boundaries and it was decided by the committee to collect the constituency data, for which a field has been added in the newsletter subscriber database. All newsletter recipients are therefore requested to check and update their data using the link to their personal preferences at the bottom of the email newsletter. If you have any difficulties please contact the webmaster.

Subscriptions

The need to build up financial reserves remains as pressing as ever. The arrival of a new year means that the HPA treasurer is looking forward to receiving member's annual subscription, which remains at £10. Payment methods are described here. However, the subscription paid by new members joining after 1st October includes the following year.

Discount on Cruises with Fred Olsen

And now some good news: HPA was approached by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines and offered a 10% discount to HPA members in return for publicity through HPA. A brother of your webmaster has used them on two occasions and praised the service although the company appeared to be unable to influence the weather. More details about the available cruises is here and you can find out here how to obtain your discount.