Dairy Crest set for windfall from pension deal

Sept 8 (Reuters) - Britain's Dairy Crest Group will report an exceptional gain of 125 million pounds ($164 million) in the current financial year after a change in the way in which its pension liabilities are calculated.

The company, which makes Cathedral City cheese, said a change to link future annual increases of pension payments to the CPI measure of inflation had resulted in a reduced deficit of 100 million pounds as of March, 2016.

Dairy Crest (LSE: DCG.L - news) said it would have to pay 12 million pounds less than previously expected into the company pension fund over the next two financial years, potentially freeing up more cash for other operations.

Its contributions will then rise to 20 million pounds annually until 2022 by when the intention is for the scheme to be self-funding.

The fund consisted of 8,255 pensioners at the end of 2016. ($1 = 0.7615 pounds) (Reporting by Justin George Varghese; Editing by Keith Weir)