Over the years, I had several grim meetings with management at the now defunct Uniq dairy food company. We should have been talking about cream cakes. Instead, most of the meetings seemed to be about its huge, badly underfunded pension fund. Pension fund concerns have soured many a company meeting subsequently.

Britain’s long history of paying low wages but extraordinarily generous final salary — or “defined benefit” (DB) — pensions has left a painful legacy. It has been made worse in some cases by chief executives who are nearing retirement opting to receive less in bonuses in favour of a higher salary, knowing they were locking in the income for life. In some schemes it is a handful of these big earners who are responsible for much of the deficit.

Too often, cash needed to be injected to fill the chasm between a scheme’s obligations and what was in the coffers. This money could have been spent on the business, improving returns for investors. I am afraid you have to get your head around this if you buy UK shares, but I think it is worth the effort.