February 2023
28Feb

Milliman analysis: Competitive pension risk transfer buyout rate drops 90 basis points to 99.3% during January

Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced the latest results of its Milliman Pension Buyout Index (MPBI). As the pension risk transfer (PRT) market continues to grow, it has become increasingly important to monitor the annuity market for plan sponsors that are considering transferring retiree pension obligations to an insurer. During January, the estimated cost to transfer retiree pension risk to an insurer in a competitive bidding process decreased from 100.2% of a plan's total liabilities...

February 28, 2023
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23Feb

Willis Towers Watson dives into U.S. market for pooled employer plans

After launching pooled employer plans in the U.K. and Europe, Willis Towers Watson is hitting the U.S. market with its own PEP offering. In a news release Thursday, the British-American multinational company announced that it had launched LifeSight PEP, a pooled employer plan for the U.S. market that it says "simplifies 401(k) plan sponsorship for employers and improves outcomes for their employees." The pooled employer plan will use Transamerica as its record keeper. The company will pursue employers with anywhere from a...

February 23, 2023
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22Feb

Higher Pension Costs, Earnings Hits Loom as Interest Rates Rise

Telecommunications giant AT&T Inc. cautioned investors this quarter about a rising corporate cost would ding its full-year earnings guidance. The culprit was pensions, and in particular, higher interest rates affecting its calculation to tally pension costs.   The company said it expected adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45—a range that trailed analyst estimates—because of nearly 20 cents per share of “headwinds associated with non-cash pension costs,” Chief Financial Officer Paschal Desroches said on the company’s fourth...

February 22, 2023
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January 2023
25Jan

Ireland. Employers call for rethink on contributions to mandatory workplace pension

Employers’ group Ibec is calling for changes to planned legislation that will put mandatory workplace pensions in place. Contribution levels to the proposed auto-enrolment pension scheme should be looked at again, with competitiveness and affordability reviews completed before contributions are increased from their entry level, Ibec executive Fergal O’Brien will tell an Oireachtas committee on Wednesday. The scheme foresees employers and workers each putting 1.5 per cent of the employee’s gross salary into the scheme at the outset, with the figure...

January 25, 2023
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13Jan

US. The Value of Corporate Pension Assets Fell Dramatically. Here’s Why That Doesn’t Matter

Corporate pension funds had a boring year — if the only measure you look at is funded status. After all, according to WTW data published recently, funded status — the amount a pension has on hand to meet obligations — stayed flat year-over-year at 95 percent. Goldman Sachs data on corporate plans, meanwhile, estimates that funded status increased, from 98 percent in 2021 to 100 percent in 2022. But these numbers obfuscate the level of volatility that corporate plan investors faced...

January 13, 2023
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04Jan

U.S. corporate pension funding holds steady at 95% despite market volatility

  U.S. corporate pension plan funding ratios remained steady in 2022 despite significant market volatility, according to a new analysis from Willis Towers Watson. The analysis, which examined pension plan data from 356 Fortune 1000 companies, estimated their aggregate funding ratio to be 95% at the end of 2022, the same as a year earlier. According to the analysis, Willis Towers Watson estimated that the pension plans finished 2022 with $1.22 trillion in assets, down 26% from $1.65 trillion a year earlier,...

January 4, 2023
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December 2022
27Dec

Germany. Companies Introduce Social Partner Model For Pensions

At first glance, the interest is extremely low: Of the 1,900 companies that the Federal Chemical Employers’ Association (BAVC) wrote to, only 50 had decided in favor of the new “Nahles pension” by the beginning of December. A rate of 2.6 percent. Nevertheless, Klaus-Peter Stiller, general manager of the association, is anything but disappointed. After all, the companies currently have other concerns in the energy crisis than adjusting their pension systems. “In this respect, the 50 companies that have...

December 27, 2022
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16Dec

UK. British Airways signs agreement under New Airways Pension Scheme

British Airways has signed an agreement with the trustee of its New Airways Pension Scheme (NAPS) on the scheme's triennial valuation, the airline's owner IAG said on Thursday. The valuation, based on the scheme's funding position as of March 31, 2021, shows an agreed technical provisions deficit of 1.65 billion pounds ($2.01 billion), compared with a deficit of 2.4 billion pounds as of March 31, 2018. Under the terms of the agreement, British Airways will not pay a dividend in 2022...

December 16, 2022
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09Dec

U.S. corporate pension plans’ funding ratios remained over or near 100% in November

U.S. corporate pension plans' funding ratios remained over or near 100% in November, but four reports said ratios dropped slightly because rising discount rates offset strong investment returns for the period. The estimated funding ratio of the 100 largest U.S. corporate pension funds fell to 111.2% as of Nov. 30, down from 113.3% as of Oct. 31, according to the latest Milliman 100 Pension Funding index. The slight dip was driven by the discount rate decreasing to 5.16% as of Nov....

December 9, 2022
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