Pensions blow for workers in crisis shipyard
Staff lose 10 per cent after billionaire’s take-over
Nearly 50 workers lost at least 10 per cent of their pensions when a billionaire’s firm took over an ailing shipyard.
Their money was part of a £1.7million pension fund deficit which emerged when Jim McColl’s Clyde Blowers Capital bought Ferguson Shipbuilders on the Clyde in Port Glasgow.
The bill has now been picked up by the UK Government - established Pension Protection Fund ( PPF) to ensure workers receive retirement cash.
But the Sunday Mail can reveal how that has left 44 former shipyard staff without their full pensions as the PPF only pays up to 90 per cent, with a cap of just over £ 37,000.
Clyde Blowers Capital were under no legal obligation to take on the debt of the pension fund, which was set up by the yard’s former owners.
The union which represents workers at Ferguson said some employees of the old company will ultimately lose out.
GMB Scotland’s Gary Cook said: “You would like to think there was a moral case for them to take on that debt but unfortunately there is no legal requirement for them to do so.
“The 44 staff will get 90 per cent of what they were promised in the final salary scheme.”
McColl, 70, one of Scotland’s richest men with an estimated £1billion fortune, bought the Ferguson business through his Clyde Blowers Capital Group for £400,000 in September 2014, af ter it had plunged into administration weeks earlier with the loss of 77 jobs. His firm created a new company – Ferguson Marine Engineering Limited – which bought assets of the business including the famous Ferguson name, retaining the Clyde’s last commercial shipbuilders.
McCol l reinstated the workforce and suggested an investment of “£ 50million-£60million” in the yard with up to 300 jobs.
But his firm’s involvement with the shipyard ceased in August 2019 when it collapsed into administration and was nationalised by the Scottish Government.
That was a result of a dispute between the shipyard and state-control led ferry operator CalMac over the rising costs and delays in the construction of two ferries.
Clyde Blowers Capital said: “The new Ferguson Marine company which was set up to run the yard purchased the assets of the old company from the administrators. At the time, only seven employees were still retained in employment by the administrators and the new Ferguson Marine met all of its obligations to those employees.
“It had no relationship with or obligation to the former employees of the old business.”
The owner of the old Ferguson firm, Alan Dunnet, could not be reached for comment.
The new owners – Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Ltd – said it wasn’t a matter for them.