How would you feel if your supposedly gold-plated company pension scheme were sold off to a business you had not heard of? It is already happening and, in answer to the question, I would be worried.

A host of pension buyout companies have sprung up over the past year, offering to liberate companies of their increasingly expensive final-salary pension schemes.

The buyout market is growing rapidly: in the first quarter of the year about £2.2 billion of pensions were flogged off to the highest bidder. And there's more to come. One in ten FTSE 100 companies is thought to have sought buyout quotes. An enormous transfer in wealth looks about to take place, affecting millions of employees and pensioners.

As we report this week, a pensions buyout can be a good thing, providing more financial security, not less.

But don't forget, the buyout firms are out there to make a profit. It is deeply worrying that a pension, which used to be regarded as an essential workplace benefit, has become just another commodity that can be bought and sold. So, too, is the realisation that scheme members, whose financial futures are at stake, usually have no direct say.

There is a danger that unscrupulous companies could push perfectly healthy schemes into speculative investments in an attempt to boost shareholder returns, so putting members' interests at risk.

Cash sweeteners - offered as part of some buyouts - to encourage workers to quit their pension plan also raise concern. They can appear tempting but are almost always a bad deal. Companies are not being generous; they are simply trying to cut costs. Yet members with small pensions can be forced to accept the bribes, no questions asked.

The Government is not blind to the risks and is tightening some of the rules, but there is still plenty of room for abuse.

Mike O'Brien, the Minister for Pensions Reform, appears reluctant to regulate pension buyouts too heavily. He may have good reasons, but it is essential that members' interests are protected properly. If they are not, it will be only a matter of time before another pensions scandal rears its ugly head.

Don't bank on the silver lining breaking through the gloom

Amid the credit crunch gloom there was one ray of light: that interest rates would have to fall as the economy slowed.

Happier times would follow as mortgage rates dropped and the ailing stock market received a much-needed boost. We could all breathe a sigh of relief and carry on as before, a little poorer, a little wiser, but generally OK.

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