May Sees Uptick in Pension Funding Levels

June 9, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - According to the latest Capital Market Update from Towers Perrin, there was a slight 0.5 percentage point increase in the Towers Perrin benchmark pension plan's funded ratio to 69.7% in May.

In a press release, Towers Perrin said results for May showed significant gains in equity results, but these were offset by a decline in long corporate yields, which pushed up liability values. With the increase, the tracked funded ratio has risen by 9.5 percentage points since bottoming out at 60.2% in February, and is up by 3.7 percentage points for the year.

However, May’s level still represents a 22 percentage point decline over the past 12 months.

With cumulative equity gains of 28% for the March-May period, the equity portfolio has reversed nearly 40% of the loss incurred during the first six months of the capital market crisis, Towers Perrin contends in its report.

The latest Capital Market Update is here .

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