Pension Funding Sees Slight Uptick in November
December 7, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Assets declined less than liabilities at the typical U.S. corporate pension plan in November resulting in a funded status of 80.5%, according to BNY Mellon Asset Management.
Reported by Rebecca Moore
This is a slight improvement from the 80.3% funded status at the end of October.
Assets for the typical plan declined 0.4% as a slight gain of 0.6% in the U.S. equity markets was offset by a drop of 4.8% in international stocks, according to the BNY Mellon Pension Summary Report for November 2010. The increase in the Aa corporate discount rate to 5.32% from 5.23% drove the typical plan’s liabilities 0.7% lower during the month, a press release said.
“We continue to move up from the nadir of funded status that was recorded at the end of August 2010, although we remain below the level that was reported at the beginning of this year,” said Peter Austin, executive director of BNY Mellon Pension Services, the pension services arm of BNY Mellon Asset Management, in the announcement. “The positive equity performances of the last three months and steadily rising interest rates have been a welcome change for plan sponsors. If these trends continue, we may see a recovery in funded status of the typical plan in excess of 10 percentage points for the last four months of the year.”