Plan Termination: Whether, When, and How?

Sessions:

Session Handout

Plan Termination: Whether, When, and How? October 29 - 30, 2008

It’s a new and challenging world for DB plan sponsors. More and more, your DB clients are asking you about an “exit strategy.” Can you help them determine and achieve their goals?

  • Standard Terminations: What goes into a truly useful standard termination study? When should the termination occur—ASAP, or years from now when the PPA lump sum changes are fully phased in? Should the plan be frozen if it hasn’t already been? Should termination lump sums be made available for some or all participants, or should the closeout instead be based entirely on annuity pricing? How about the plan’s investment mix in the interim? Are any assumption changes warranted? When and how would the plan be made sufficient? Do you know how to navigate through the minefield of PBGC and IRS rules to complete the standard termination process successfully? What are the most common distribution mistakes? What does it take to survive a PBGC standard termination audit?
  • Distress and Involuntary Terminations: For your financially strapped clients with underfunded plans, what’s required for a distress or involuntary termination? What do you need to know about PBGC calculations, whether of underfunding or of missed contribution totals? How can your clients deal effectively with the liabilities PBGC pursues, including its stepped-up enforcement of “downsizing liability” in anticipation of a future termination? What about PBGC reporting requirements, PBGC monitoring, and PBGC’s role in corporate transactions and bankruptcies?

In short, whatever kind of termination your client may be contemplating, what are the “traps for the unwary” that may be awaiting your client—and you?

Get answers from the experts on a broad range of plan termination issues at this timely and highly informative seminar. Speakers include actuaries with significant experience in dealing with plan terminations, legal experts, insurance industry experts, and PBGC representatives.

Session Category: Unassigned
Credits: EA Core: 8.40 CPD: 8.40
  • 1 . Brian C. Donohue October Three LLC
  • 2 . Harold J. Ashner Keightley & Ashner, LLP
  • 3 . Stuart A. Sirkin Ernst & Young, LLP
  • 4 . Kurt Dietrich Dietrich and Associates, Inc.
  • 5 . Catherine B. Klion Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.