PricewaterhouseCoopers is gussying up its cash balance plans, with...

PricewaterhouseCoopers is gussying up its cash balance plans, with combined assets of about $1.1 billion, before merging them into one. The firm currently has three cash balance plans: an employee-directed plan covering Pricewaterhouse employees; a separate plain vanilla plan covering employees of the former Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm, which Pricewaterhouse acquired in July; and a third for former employees of Kwasha Lipton, which Coopers acquired in January 1997. Under the remodeling, Coopers and Kwasha employees who have come on board since last year’s merger will come under the participant-directed cash balance plan, which gives employees the choice of investing their hypothetical accounts in 17 options, many of which mirror the investment options available in their 401(k) retirement plan.