A £3.4m hole in Tuffnells Parcels Express pension fund has prompted the Pensions Regulator to issue a warning notice to former owner Smiths News and several other parties connected to Tuffnells that they could be required to make up the shortfall.
The announcement follows an investigation by the Pensions Regulator into the pension fund’s missing millions, which administrators had uncovered when Tuffnells went bust in June 2023.
Newspaper and magazine wholesaler Smiths News bought Sheffield-based Tuffnells, which was also known as the Big Green Parcel Machine, in December 2014. Six years later, in May 2020, it sold it for £15m to a management buyout team.
In a Stock Exchange announcement today (23 February) Smiths News revealed it had been issued a warning notice alongside “a number of other parties” and that the maximum amount the Pensions Regulator “can seek in aggregate from all targets, is now estimated at £3,467,000.”
It said that the group would be responding to the warning notice and that its response “will be considered by the Pensions Regulator case team and then referred to a Determinations Panel before any decision is made as to whether an financial support direction (FSD) should be issued against Smiths News, and if so, in what form or for what value. It is therefore too early to know if an FSD will be issued, or the amount or form of any such support.”
Smiths News added: “The Board maintains the view that Smiths News acted reasonably throughout its time as parent of Tuffnells and that it was an overall net contributor of funding to Tuffnells during its period of ownership.”
Last year, in its 2025 annual report Smiths News revealed that the Pensions Regulator was investigating a shortfall in the Tuffnells pension scheme, noting that it had not made any provisions.
When Smiths News sold Tuffnells in May 2020, the parcels company was making losses of around £14m on annual revenues of £164m.
Six months later it had returned to profit, generating £178m in annual revenue and £5.5m of pre-tax profit.
However by 2023 the company was struggling, dogged by rising fuel and labour costs and increased competition in a market that had slowed following the Covid-19 lockdown boom.
In June 2023 Tuffnells fell into administration. In the creditors report the administrators revealed that for the five-month period ending 31 May 2023 Tuffnells’ turnover was £64.7m and its operating loss was £4.4m.
The report also said that staff were owed an estimated £620,000 in wages, holiday pay and pension benefits.
Tuffnells’ domain name, ‘know-how’, trademarks, software codes, website, phone numbers, social media accounts, records and signage were sold to Shift IP for £500,000 and sister firm Shift Logistics both owned by 29 year old entrepreneur Jacob Corlett.
DX entered into licence to occupy agreements in respect of the firm’s properties and also paid £1m to acquire the company’s interest in a freehold property in Ipswich.
A request from MT for comment from the Pensions Regulator has yet to receive a response.
