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Employer-sponsored private-sector defined benefit (DB) plans have been on the decline for many years as U.S. employers have shifted to defined contribution (DC) retirement plans. Just 17% of private-sector employees had only a DB plan or both a DB and DC plan as of March 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Meanwhile, […]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has extended for an additional year the temporary nondiscrimination relief it offers closed defined benefit (DB) retirement plans.
A shift to using real market returns for interest crediting in defined benefit (DB) plans’ cash balance (CB) features is lessening volatility and making the supplementary retirement accounts more appealing to plan sponsors—especially because this type of formula is more responsive to changing market conditions, according to a recent study.
Approximately 30% of U.S. defined benefit (DB) pension plans currently have a funded status of 95% or higher, making a full buyout or significant risk transfer transaction a “feasible option” for a growing number of plans since the start of the year, according to a recent analysis by RiskFirst, a financial technology company that works […]
“Reverse spinoff” transactions being considered by some retirement plans to avoid Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) premiums “should be disregarded” by the agency, staff suggested in a recent web posting.
Following a flood of investment derisking activity after the 2008 global financial crisis (see related October 2017 story), defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors now face the fallout from years of rising demand for insurer buyouts of pension benefit obligations (PBOs).
Defined benefit (DB) retirement plan sponsors with restated preapproved plan documents that were part of the latest Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 6-year remedial amendment cycle can benefit from some of the lessons learned by other sponsors that have completed the defined contribution (DC) cycle.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to issue opinion and advisory letters for some preapproved defined benefit (DB) pension plans restated for changes in plan qualification requirements, the IRS announced March 9.
When a new hire joined a U.S. Fortune 500 company in 1998, there was about a 59% chance he or she would be offered a traditional or hybrid defined benefit (DB) pension. As of 2017, that likelihood dropped to 16% in the same group of employers, according to a new Willis Towers Watson (WTW) retrospective […]
Global institutional pension fund assets in the 22 major markets grew to $41.3 trillion at year-end 2017, according to latest figures in the Thinking Ahead Institute’s Global Pension Assets Study, representing the highest figure since the report began in 1997.