The Aberdeen-headquartered company said around £22m of its group section escrow had been utilised to complete the transaction. The group said that £17.5m had been returned to the group and £2.1m applied towards the buy-ins premium.

FirstGroup confirmed that around £2.7m had been retained in escrow to cover the advisory and legal costs and will “convert this to buy-out in the near term.”

It added in a statement that the group retained around £44m in “escrow relating to the bus section that will be reviewed as part of the 2030 triennial valuation.”

Ryan Mangold, FirstGroup chief financial officer, said: “Since 2020, we have settled around £1.7bn of pension obligations, securing the pensions of former employees, substantially reducing pension risk and realising value for the group.

“Our remaining pension schemes are well funded, and our focus remains on managing them efficiently while maintaining a strong balance sheet to support our capital allocation priorities.