Withdrawal Liabilities, Corporate Sponsors and Union Members

Like many others, union members are grappling with a jittery economy and its impact on plan sponsors. As a result, companies are exploring ways to restructure employee benefit plans in order to contain costs and still keep pension promises.

Just yesterday, Pensions & Investments' Barry Burr wrote that United Parcel Service, Inc. ("UPS") is paying $1.2 billion as a withdrawal liability to the New England Teamsters & Trucking Industry Pension Plan. In exchange, and subject to approval by its employees who are union members, UPS will not have to pay for other companies' employees. According to "UPS to leave New England fund, strikes funding deal," the popular delivery company will write a check every year over the next half century for $43 million. An accounting charge of $896 million will be recognized in this year's financial statements.

On August 28, 2012, Dow Jones Newswires explains that UPS sees the creation of this new pension plan - to replace the old one - as "being fair" to multiple constituencies such as shareholders as well as to employees.According to "UPS Restructures Pension, Sees $896 Million 3rd-Quarter Change" (Nasdaq.com, August 28, 2012), over 10,000 employees will be affected.

The action did not go unnoticed by at least one rating agency. On August 28, 2012, Standard & Poor's explicitly referenced the company's liability exposure to multi-employer plans as part of its rating assessment of UPS and added that the IOU is seen as a "debt equivalent" and "significant."

The take-away points are clear.

The large and long-lived costs associated with offering ERISA plans continue to dominate the discussions in numerous corporate corridors. Besides having to infuse cash (sometimes billions of dollars), company plan sponsors may be in danger of ratings downgrades. A drop ratings boots the cost of capital which in turn narrows the universe of positive net value opportunities that help to grow enterprise value. Funding issues with employee benefit plans could force M&A deals to evaporate.

Expect other companies to announce pension restructurings.

What remains to be seen is whether a showdown between shareholders and participants will ensue with either or both groups asking ERISA fiduciaries to justify the terms of a particular deal in court.

Source: http://feeds.lexblog.com/~r/PensionRiskMatters/~3/yt5dWSuLJ68/

annuity calculator pensions advisory service can i retire pensions calculator ill health retirement