The Shell Pension Scheme in the Netherlands, one of the largest in Europe, has all but restored its financial position to health 13 years ahead of schedule, after beating its benchmarks last year in everything apart from private equity.

In its just-published annual report, the €17bn scheme said its funding ratio, the ratio of its assets to the estimated value of its liabilities, had gone up from 119% to 123% in 2010. Its statutory funding ratio - which its regulator, the Dutch central bank, had said the scheme had to reach by the end of 2013 - is 124%.