Pension-fund 'buyout' deals, whereby insurance companies take closed schemes off companies' hands, are set to be about twice as popular this year as in 2009 - but the market may struggle thereafter, as insurers run out of capital to back more deals.

The pensions consultancy, Lane Clark & Peacock, predicts that £8bn (€9.4bn)'s worth of these deals will be signed by the end of this year, taking the total since 2007 - when the market took off with a host of new entrants - to about £30bn.