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That's not quite right. They're saying that bond yields temporarily rose due to illiquidity in the market and were expected to fall shortly, which they did. The Bank of England didn't transfer wealth to the pension fund. They acted as the lender of last resort to tide them over.
Now, if the increase in interest rates had been more permanent, the strategy could have actually failed to the point of insolvency without an actual wealth transfer. Buy that didn't happen.
If my friend acts as a lender of last resort every time I am in danger of getting margin called, that is a valuable service, worth money, even though no money needs to be transferred from his account to mine.
Illiquidity is a red herring, a euphemism for the fact that the yield of those gilts is lower than it should be, propped up by overleverage. Bond yields are rising everywhere. Which is a problem, since they've successfully "hedged" themselves against falling interest rates by making themselves vulnerable to rising interest rates through leverage. Now they're getting margin called, and the state has bought bonds above market rate to keep the charade going, rather than liquidate their positions to let the market find the true, higher, yield.
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