tailieunhanh - CREATING VALUE IN PENSION PLANS (OR, GENTLEMEN PREFER BONDS)

Consistent with this logic, the pension plan assets of Boots, the . pharmaceutical retailer, were made up of 75% stocks and 25% bonds at yearend 1999. But between the spring of 2000 and July 2001, the company’s pension plan sold all its equities and invested the proceeds in duration-matched bonds. Security analysts, accountants, and actuaries were critical of Boots’s new strategy. The lower expected returns from bonds, they charged, would force Boots to increase its contributions to the plan in future years, thereby reducing expected future earnings and presumably firm value. According to financial economists, however, the step taken by Boots would actually increase shareholder value by lowering taxes while, at the same time,. | CREATING VALUE IN PENSION PLANS OR GENTLEMEN PREFER BONDS by Jeremy Gold Jeremy Gold Pensions and Nick Hudson Stern Stewart Co. Donventional wisdom holds that because stocks are expected to earn higher returns than bonds over the long haul and pension liabilities have long lives corporate pension funds should be invested primarily in stocks. Consistent with this logic the pension plan assets of Boots the . pharmaceutical retailer were made up of 75 0 stocks and 25 0 bonds at year-end 1999. But between the spring of 2000 and July 2001 the company s pension plan sold all its equities and invested the proceeds in duration-matched bonds. Security analysts accountants and actuaries were critical of Boots s new strategy. The lower expected returns from bonds they charged would force Boots to increase its contributions to the plan in future years thereby reducing expected future earnings and presumably firm value. According to financial economists however the step taken by Boots would actually increase shareholder value by lowering taxes while at the same time fortifying the security of plan participants. With actuaries and earnings-fixated security analysts predicting higher pension expenses lower earnings and lower stock valuation and finance theorists predicting greater plan security and higher stock valuation the . capital markets fought to a temporary draw with little immediate impact on Boots s stock price. Thus it appears that the markets were able to penetrate the complexities of pension fund accounting while perhaps reserving judgment on any permanent value creation. Over the course of the next several years as pension accounting becomes more value-oriented and transparent the increased shareholder value should become mani Meanwhile Boots has estimated that in disposing of its equities and establishing a portfolio consisting entirely of long bonds it reduced its annual fund management costs from 10 million to million. In this article we argue .