Tata Steel's pension fund has rejected city financier Edi Truell’s repeated attempts to recover the pension fund, noting it is an “unacceptable risk”, Reuters has revealed.

The firm has refused Boris Johnson’s former pension adviser’s offer to take control of the £15bn fund and its 130,000 members as well as any growing liabilities while retaining a share of future profits.

Truell told Reuters that he planned on assembling a group of insurance companies to take responsibility for the pensions, charging Tata “north of one billion pounds”. He has said that his strategy would have allowed members to keep their pension benefits in full by plugging the pension fund’s deficit through high-yield infrastructure project investments, instead of index-linked gilts.

Despite Truell’s attempts, chairman of the pension trustees Allan Johnston explained that the plan was unwelcome and would need commitment from Tata Steel, the government, The Pensions Regulator and financial backers.

“Mr Truell’s proposals were dependent on cooperation and commitments from (the British) government and Tata Steel, corporate and financial transactions with third parties, and approval by the pensions regulator. Mr Truell was unable to demonstrate that there was any reasonable prospect of these things happening,” Johnston said.

“With the benefit of its knowledge of all the circumstances currently surrounding the scheme, the Trustees concluded that Mr Truell’s proposals were not viable and would expose members to unacceptable risk. This has been explained to Mr Truell.”

While the company is yet to make a definitive decision regarding the pension scheme, a consultation is taking place to consider possible cuts to members’ payments.

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