The average funding ratio of the 100 largest U.S. corporate defined benefit plans jumped 4.7 percentage points to 89.2% in 2017 after years of small declines, Pensions & Investments‘ annual analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows.
“2017 was sort of a sigh of relief for a lot of (chief financial officers) and financial executives that I’ve talked to,” said Brian McDonnell, managing director and global head of pensions at Cambridge Associates LLC in Boston.
The increased funding ratio in 2017 stopped a trend that saw the average decline to 84.5% at the end of 2016 from 85.1% in 2015 and 85.7% in 2014.
