The £630m Uniq Pension Scheme is already in talks with insurance companies to 'buy out' and wind itself down, following yesterday's £113m bid for its former parent company by the convenience-foods group Greencore. The buyout will bring to an end one of the most intriguing pensions-finance sagas of recent years.

Chris Martin, chairman of the Uniq scheme's trustees, said the pension scheme will get about £100m from the Greencore deal, meaning it will not need to enter the Pension Protection Fund, a government safety-net for orphaned funds. As a result, it will be able to pay better benefits to its members.