Pension Closeouts: Opportunities Beckon To Companies And Insurers

“More plan sponsors (industrial companies with pension obligations) than ever have seen their pension plans go from being sorely underfunded to being nearly fully funded or even overfunded over the last year as equity markets have soared and rising interest rates have trimmed the present value of future pension obligations,” observes an April 4, 2014 research note by RBC Capital Markets analysts Eric N. Berg, Bulent Ozcan and Kenneth S Lee. “Pension plan managers can lock in these gains by doing a pension transfer to an insurance company now. And that means, should the stock market take a fresh dive,…