Under its 250m deal with the paper's former owners Trinity Mirror, FL Partners, which is led by investment bankers Peter Crowley and Niall Hughes, must establish a new pension scheme for the paper's employees.

Meanwhile, sources close to the deal, which was completed last week, rubbished suggestions that the Coolmore Trio of Dermot Desmond, John Magnier and JP McManus were among the unsuccessful bidders for the title.

"Do you seriously think that FL Partners would have managed to beat them?" asked one informed source.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has already written to the company seeking a new defined-benefit pension scheme to replace the one operated by Trinity Mirror, which offered staff guaranteed retirement benefits. But the paper's incoming chief executive, Alan Byrne, has said FL Partners has no intention of offering one.

"I hope the staff realise that no one opens defined-benefit schemes these days. They're just not part of the business landscape and in 20 years' time, people will be amazed that they ever existed, " he said.

Byrne said the NUJ's demand did not reflect the views of the paper's staff, judging by meetings he had had with them in recent days.

"They are hoping we will put in place a good defined-contribution scheme [where benefits are not guaranteed] and they won't be disappointed, " he said.

But Barry Fitzpatrick, the union's British newspaper organiser, said it represented the majority of the staff at the Racing Post and they wanted a defined-benefit scheme.

His union's judgment of FL Partners' pension proposals would be based on two issues . . .

"the level of employer contribution, which will have to stand comparison with the amount contributed by Trinity Mirror in the past, and the nature of the scheme . . . whether it be defined benefit or defined-contribution."

The pensions issue is likely to complicate the short-term plans of FL Partners and its backers, an undisclosed number of wealthy Irish investors who are understood to have bought the newspaper as a standalone investment and have no immediate plans to make more media acquisitions.