Some companies have complained that their cash flow would suffer from...

Some companies have complained that their cash flow would suffer from limitations on how much company stock they could contribute to their retirement plans. However, more than half — 54% — of companies surveyed by CIEBA reported that they contributed cash to their retirement plans and then used the cash contribution to buy company stock on the open market, instead of contributing stock directly to the plan. In fact, 83.3% of the companies that did not have an ESOP feature did so. The average market value of the plans surveyed by the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets in October was $5 billion.