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Hoover staff in Britain could see a reduction in their future pensions after the company reached agreement with regulators to move its final salary scheme into the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

Hoover will announce this week that 7,800 of its UK pension fund members will be transferred to the PPF, the Sunday Times reported.

The company use to employ thousands and its manufacturer base in the UK at Merthyr.

The move would not affect the pensions of those who have already retired, but those below pension age could see their benefits cut by 10%.

The PPF also offers less generous inflation linking than some defined benefit schemes.

The Candy Group, the Italian owner of Hoover, is expected to make a final one-off contribution of £60m to the scheme which will cost the PPF around £250m, funded by a levy on other final salary schemes.

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Hoover, which used to make white goods in Merthyr Tydfil and Cambridgeshire, now has around 500 distribution and marketing staff in Britain after production was moved to China.

Hoover has reached an agreement with the Pensions Regulator and trustees of the pension scheme to make the transfer. A 28-day window for people to object to the proposal closed on Friday.

The trustees said: "We are very disappointed that, despite a long period of hard work and discussion, the parties have been unable to agree a viable long-term funding solution to the scheme."