Lloyds ‘has lost £10bn’ from staff pension pot

Lloyds’ pension scheme may have lost £10bn in value in the September collapse – sparking calls for the bank to reveal more details about the fund’s condition.

The pension fund, one of the largest in the UK, was forced to sell ‘a large part of its equity holdings’ to meet urgent cash calls following former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-Budget.

Details of Lloyds’ ‘fire sale’ – linked to the use of liability-driven investments – were revealed in remarkable evidence to MPs by Henry Tapper, a pensions expert who is also the partner of Stella Eastwood, head of group pensions at Lloyds.

Without naming her, Tapper told MPs he was living with “the CEO of a large DB (defined benefit) plan that was supposed to liquidate a large portion of his share holdings.”

He added that the “size of the collateral deposit ran into the billions.”

Mark Brown, head of the BTU union, has now written to Lloyds pension scheme trustees urging ‘a robust investigation’ into Eastwood.

Staff are “routinely punished for much less,” Brown said, adding that the leak was “a clear breach of confidentiality.”

Pensions expert John Ralfe said Lloyds should make a formal statement to reassure participants. Lloyds said the sell-off had “no material impact” on the scheme’s funding position. But analysts say Lloyds’ £52bn plan, with 345,000 members, could have lost a fifth of its asset value.

The bank declined to comment on Eastwood’s position, saying it would provide an update on the plan in February.