A BUSINESSMAN claims he and his staff are set to lose their pensions in a legal dispute with a building society.
John Ramage, owner of Glasgow-based engineering firm Ramage Young, says Dunfermline Building Society (DBS) plans to target a pension fund set up by senior members of staff.
DBS is seeking a bankruptcy order against Blenheim Investments, a partnership between the pension scheme and two other property firms, which was set up to buy property using a loan from DBS.
The building society, which collapsed in 2009 and was taken over by Nationwide, wants the sum, believed to be around £4 million, back in full.
Mr Ramage claims that if the court grants a sequestration order, the next step will be to wind up the fund. He said: "They are choosing to proceed with an action which is irreversible and which has devastating consequences to my staff."
Mr Ramage added that Blenheim Investments has tried to refinance the property in order to repay the sum, but due to falling property prices has been unable to secure the full amount. He claims they have offered DBS £2.4m or an alternative solution which sees the partnership pay interest on the loan until property prices improve.
A spokesman for KPMG, acting as administrators for part of DBS, refused to comment due to "customer confidentiality".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article