LONDON -- The last five years have been tough for those in retirement. Portfolio valuations have been hammered, and annuity rates have plunged. There's no sign things will improve anytime soon, either, as the eurozone and the U.K. economy look set to muddle through at best for some years to come.

A great way to protect yourself from the downturn, however, is to build your retirement fund with shares of large, well-run companies that should grow their earnings steadily over the coming decades. Over time, such investments ought to result in rising dividends and inflation-beating capital growth.

In this series, I'm tracking down the U.K. large caps that have the potential to beat the FTSE 100 over the long term and support a lower-risk, income-generating retirement fund (you can see all of the companies I've covered so far on this page).

In this article I'm going to introduce the five top-scoring shares so far and see how they compare. They are Unilever (NYSE: UL) , Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L) , Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-B) , SABMiller (LSE: SAB.L) , and British American Tobacco (NYSE: BTI) .

First, let's take a look at how each of them scored against my five key retirement share criteria:

Criterion

Unilever

Tesco

Royal Dutch Shell

SABMiller

Follow this link:
Are These the 5 Best Retirement Shares in the FTSE 100?