What do people mean by "pension value"?

Albermarle

Nebulous2 said:

I've seen a semi-regular poster here claim assets in 8 figures, although not all in pensions. I think the post later disappeared, so I'm wary about drawing attention to him / her. 

I also seem to remember a post by a new poster who said they were selling a multi-million pound business and were looking for suggestions what to do with the money. 

Outside MSE I live in a rural area and retired farmers (and other business people) will buy a house in the local market town. Some of these will have passed the business on, but where they don't have direct descendants and the farm is sold it would be relatively normal to net £3-5 million. I'd have a dozen or so casual acquaintances in that ballpark, and several others that probably squeeze over the £10 million. 

The thing is however that they don't live like it. There may be a fancy car, and some long-haul holidays, but apart from that they seem more interested in not putting their heads above the parapet than in flaunting their wealth. They went to school with us, grew up with us, and have remained part of the local community, which keeps them grounded.  

When I think about it, when I was working I had a lot of direct regular contact with Small business owners, even some occasional social contact. ( by small I mean say around the £10M to £50M turnover area) .
Most seemed pretty normal, down to earth types, even a bit rough around the edges in some cases.
If they ever sold up they usually got a few Million, especially if they owned some of the land as well.
Normally they went out of sight for a couple of years and then started a new business rather than retire, as it was in their blood.

NoMore

But we are not talking about total assets, we are talking about pension value.