pension liability

Has anyone looked into the pension liabilities in detail? The FY12 accounts showed a $105.9m deficit and these all sit off balance sheet.The actuarial discount rates used to value these liabilities range from 3.1% to 4.9% which seem high for risk-free-rates. If these are revalued to realistic lower current discount rates there could be a significant top-up.

The reason this comes to mind is IAG's recent sale of its UK assets. IAG had to retain the pension liabilities as the acquirers did want it and they took a material hit to profit to top it up.

Geographically most of the PPX pension deficit sits in Canada ($15.9m)and the UK (>$70m). However, any potential sale of Netherlands and Germany could see it need to deal with $5.3m of defecit with a potential top-up.

What are people thinking about this issue, particularly in the context of hybrid holders? Should our capital be used to support pension liability short-falls?