REWahoo
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
Here's a new (to me) twist on the pension funding issue:
Insight: Demand soaring for pension transfers to insurers - Yahoo! NewsA Reuters analysis of the pension obligations of the S&P 500 found that almost half of the companies with underfunded pensions have enough cash to spare to do a risk-transfer deal, including Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland Co, suggesting there could be a scramble ahead for that limited capacity.
Known as pension terminal funding, the concept is simple: an employer pays an upfront premium to an insurance company for an annuity that covers all the members of a pension plan.
The insurer becomes responsible, via the annuity, for all of the retirees' pensions and the sponsor gets to wash its hands of the obligation.