Pension Corporation, which specialises in acquiring closed company pension schemes, has taken on its first open one in a highly unusual deal, which raises the prospect of companies divesting themselves of financially-risky schemes without withdrawing valued final-salary benefits from staff.

Denso, a Japanese manufacturer that offloaded its closed UK schemes to Pension Corporation in 2009, has now also handed over the Denso Manufacturing UK Pension Scheme and the Denso Marston Pension Scheme, two pension plans together worth about £200m that remain open to the firm's current UK workforce.