pension reversion

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Pension reversion


Pension Reversion

The act of a company canceling an over-funded pension plan in order to recover the amount by which it is over-funded. In addition, pension reversion usually also involves replacing the canceled plan with a less expensive, fixed annuity plan using funds recovered from the former plan. The amount by which funds from the former plan exceed the cost of the new plan is paid to the company or employer.

pension reversion

Termination of a pension plan by an employer that wishes to capture the amount by which the plan is overfunded. Pension reversions are generally accomplished by using funds in the plan to purchase a fixed annuity from an insurance company. Excess funds beyond the cost of the annuity revert to the company.
References in periodicals archive ?
They cover installing an ESOP, loans, business structures (including C and S corporations), ESOPs in S corporations, valuations and appraisers, repurchase obligations, participation and vesting, allocations, contributions, distributions, dividends and diversification, accounting rules, reporting requirements, redress of grievances, voting, trustees, fiduciaries, prohibited transactions, Code Section 1042 rollovers, multi-investor leverages ESOPs, securities laws and corporate governance, 401(k) plans and employee ownership, labor laws and unions, plan termination and freezes, bankruptcies, pension reversions, and alternative ways to get equity to employees.
1992, Pension Reversions and Worker-Stockholder Wealth Transfers, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107: 1033-1056.
First, firms can avoid pension reversions and instead obtain excess assets by reducing future pension contributions.
Bowers, Christea, and Mittelstaedt (1994) and Pontiff, Shleifer, and Weisbach (1990) also attempt to measure wealth transfers from labor to shareholders by examining the relation between pension reversions and acquisition premiums.
These results regarding the relation between pension reversions and wealth transfers are consistent with the evidence concerning wage concessions in general.