UK pension deficit hits record high $560 billion in January - data

LONDON (Reuters) - The shortfall in Britain's private sector pension plans rose to a record 367.5 billion pounds ($559.59 billion) at the end of January from 266.3 billion pounds in December, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) said on Tuesday.

The total assets under management of 6,057 schemes tracked by the PPF index were 1,274 billion pounds, while liabilities stood at 1,641 billion pounds. The funding ratio fell to 77.6 percent and 5,175 schemes were in deficit, the watchdog said.

Pension funds are struggling to finance their schemes due to record-low bond yields across much of the developed world.

The PPF was created in 2005 to take over the assets and liabilities of UK-based defined benefit pension schemes if an employer goes bust.

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; Editing by Nishant Kumar)