S&N Pensioners Group

News Update

Full details on the NEWS page....

The 2023 AGM Minutes have been added to the Resources page

Background - 2008 Heineken Undertaking

The S&N Pensions Group was created in response to a decision by Heineken UK Ltd not to pay any discretionary increase in pensions in 2010, contrary to an undertaking given by its parent company Heineken NV at the time of the takeover of S&N in 2008. The Group aims to try to provide members of the S&N Pension Plan with relevant information on this subject and to promote and protect their interests.

What Heineken said in 2008:

‘There is a practice of providing discretionary pension increases each year in line with retail price inflation (capped at 5%) on pensions built up in the Scheme before 6 April 1997, to the extent that these exceed the Guaranteed Minimum Pension. These increases are not guaranteed and are discretionary, but it is Heineken's intention to continue this practice.’

This was never a legally binding undertaking but was taken as a clear statement of intent by a company of high international reputation that it intended to protect S&N pensions against inflation. It was made to remove a potential objection in the Courts which might have put an obstacle in the way of the takeover.

What has happened since 2008:

Apart from 2010, when no discretionary increase was given (see above) Heineken have awarded discretionary increases each year. However, these have typically been well below RPI inflation even during years when RPI was below 5%. In only three years -2012, 2015 and 2022 – has Heineken so far honoured its undertaking. In the third of these an increase of 5% was awarded against inflation of 12.3%. 

As a result, and before any discretionary award this year a pre-1997 pension has now lost some 28% of its value against RPI inflation, much of which was during the recent two years of very high inflation. Even when measured against consumer price inflation including housing costs (CPIH) - the Office of National Statistics lead measure of inflation – a pre-1997 S&N pension has lost 15% of its value. (RPI inflation in the year to July 2024 was 3.6% and CPIH inflation 3%).

Of this, 17% in the case of RPI and 9% in the case of CPIH is directly due to Heineken not having honoured its 2008 undertaking – these amounts exclude the additional loss of value in 2022 and 2023 when inflation was higher than 5% and therefore outside the limits set in the undertaking.

All this is shown in the following graphs.

This has an important and growing impact on former S&N employees and in particular on older members of the Pension Plan whose whole service was before 1997. 

An annual review process takes place during which Heineken UK evaluates and decide whether to make a discretionary increase and if so at what level. This normally takes place during the summer and is finalised when the July inflation numbers are known.

We would urge as many of you as possible to write to the Managing Director of Heineken UK Ltd, Mr Boudewijn Haarsma,(postal address below or use email address of boudewijn.haarsma@heineken.co.uk) reminding him of the undertaking, asking him to do everything possible to protect pensioners against the effects of inflation this year and to take steps to repair the damage caused by Heineken not having complied with what it said it would do in 2008. A suggested letter format is shown below.

Mr Boudewijn Haarsma,

Managing Director, Heineken UK Ltd

Elsley Court,20-22 Great Titchfield Street

London

W1W 8BE

Dear Mr Haarsma

I am a former employee of Scottish and Newcastle and a pensioner member of the S&N Pension Plan. Since the takeover of S&N in 2008 that part of my pension earned before 1997 has lost over one quarter of its value when measured against RPI even though Heineken made an undertaking at the time of the takeover that it intended to continue with S&N’s previous practice on discretionary increases which would have gone a long way to avoiding this damage. I know there are different ways of looking at inflation, but the hard truth is that since Heineken took over S&N the value of my pension has fallen a lot. Would you please do everything you can to increase pensions this year by at least the level of inflation and take steps to repair the damage of the last 14 years.

Yours sincerely

(Name)

Communication with Heineken UK Pensions team.

We have been asked to pass on a message to ask that if anyone needs to write to the Heineken UK Pensions team or Heineken UK management that they do so by email if possible. If they do send a letter by post, could they please include an email address for return correspondence. At the moment the preferred means of communication is by email rather than post due to staff working from home and paper handling being a problem.

The Email Address is:       snpensions@capita.co.uk

S&N Pensioners’ Group - who we are

We are an independent, non-profit making organisation with a volunteer working party (none of whom receive any payment for their services) who monitor and engage with the Trustee, Heineken UK and Heineken NV over matters concerning S&N Plan members. The volunteers are all former employees of S&N and are elected each year at our annual AGM which is open to all members of the S&N Pension Plan. All members of the S&N Pension Plan including former Courage employees are welcome and are entitled to join the Group. Membership is free although Members may be invited to contribute voluntarily to running costs from time to time.

As our Group has no offices, and we wish to keep running costs to a minimum we will communicate with members only via email or this website. Please, wherever possible, pass on copies of correspondence to other members who may not have access to computers or the internet.

If you are a member of the Plan we would welcome you as a member of this Group. Please use the relevant section of the website to register.  You will be able to post comments, see any news and arrange to get e-mail updates (*).  This will all make communication much easier.

Please support this Group as it is important for all members of the S&N Pension Plan. Success depends on the involvement and action of the members.  Please look at the material on the Resources page and see what you can do to help. 

Thank you.

* If you would like to receive an email whenever anything new is posted on the site please take the following steps. 

1. Register on the site - this is done by clicking on the word 'Register' on the right hand side of the Home page under the word 'Navigation' then following the instructions.
2. Once you have registered - log in by clicking on the word 'Login', again on the right hand side of the Home page - you will need your user name which you chose when you registered and your password.
3. Once you have logged in go to any page for which you would like to receive an email when a website update takes place. You will see your name in a black box at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Click on that and a drop-down box appears. Click on 'Subscribe to Page Updates' and you will be registered to receive an email whenever a change takes place on that page. Repeat for each page for which you would like to receive updates. 
4. If you want to stop receiving these email updates, log in and on each relevant page click on your name as before and then click on 'Remove Update Subscription' in the drop-down box.