NOTE 6 – PENSION PLANS

The Company maintains a defined benefit pension plan (the “Plan”) covering a number of its current and former employees in the United Kingdom, although it does also have other much smaller pension arrangements in the U.S. and overseas. The Plan is closed to future service accrual but has a large number of deferred and current pensioners.


	Three Months Ended March 31
(in millions)	2017			2016

Plan net pension credit/(charge):
Service cost	$	(0.2	)	$	(0.2	)
Interest cost on projected benefit obligation		(3.7	)		(5.4	)
Expected return on plan assets		5.9			7.8
Amortization of prior service credit		0.3			0.3
Amortization of actuarial net losses		(1.2	)		(0.7	)

	$	1.1		$	1.8

The amortization of prior service credit and actuarial net losses is a reclassification out of accumulated other comprehensive loss into selling, general and administrative expenses.

The Company also maintains an unfunded defined benefit pension plan covering a number of its current and former employees in Germany (the “German plan”). The German plan is closed to new entrants and has no assets. The net pension charge for the German plan for the three months ended March 31, 2017 was $0.2 million (three months ended March 31, 2016 - $0.2 million).

As at March 31, 2017, our Performance Chemicals segment has pension schemes in its European businesses with a liability of $4.2 million (December 31, 2016 - $4.1 million).