FTSE 100 deficit doubles to 245 bln pounds-study

LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - The aggregate deficit of the FTSE 100 pension schemes has almost doubled from 124 billion pounds ($185 billion) to 245 billion pounds in the year to the end of March on an "economic" basis, consultant Redington Partners said on Monday.

The economic basis calculates the deficit by measuring pension liabilities against the interest rate swaps curve as opposed to against AA-rated corporate bonds, the measure widely used by corporate sponsors to calculate pension deficits.

"Pension liabilities have risen very sharply, entire asset classes are in free fall and all at exactly the point of the most extreme weakening of the collective corporate covenant in history," Dawid Konotey-Ahulu, partner at Redington, said.

"There have been many references in the past to a 'perfect storm' but this time it's the real thing."

On an IAS19 valuation basis whereby liabilities are calculated using yields on AA rated corporate bonds, FTSE 100 aggregated funds have dropped to a deficit of 51 billion pounds from a surplus of 21 billion pounds during the year to end of March.

Redington said the environment for pension funds is looking increasingly risky due to the onset of weakening corporate sponsor covenants.

The FTSE 100 market capitalisation has fallen to 989 billion pounds from 1.38 trillion in the past year meaning the aggregate deficit of the FTSE 100 pension schemes has increased to 25 percent of market capitalisation from 9 percent. ($1=.6702 Pound) (Reporting by James Molony)