The funded status of corporate pension plans in the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index improved by a net $23 billion in April to 79.6%, up 2.2 percentage points since March 31, with $37 billion in investment gains offsetting liability increases of $14 billion.
The plan’s funded status was up 1.4 percentage points from Dec. 31 but 22.8 percentage points below the funded status of 102.4% of April 30, 2008, according to a Milliman news release.
The index’s plans saw a cumulative investment return of 4.56% in April. For the year ended April 30, the plans returned -19.95%. Year-to-date the plans returned -0.38%.
Funded status is projected to increase slightly to 80.1% by the end of 2009, with an expected return of 8.1% and a discount rate of 6.85% for the remainder of the year, according to the news release.
The pension assets of the 100 companies listed in the index were valued at a combined $946 billion as of April 30.
