Flowers Foods Inc., Thomasville, Ga., announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday it has made a voluntary lump-sum offer to about 2,500 terminated vested employees who are yet to retire.
The former employees had until Oct. 31 to accept the offer, and about 60% did so, the preliminary results showed. The offer was intended to reduce the company's total defined benefit plan projected benefit obligations by about 10%, according to the 10-Q filing.
The company's largest defined benefit plan is frozen, while a smaller one representing union employees is still open.
As of Dec. 28, the company's defined benefit plans had $462.8 million in assets and $463.7 million in projected benefit obligations, for a funding ratio of 99.8%, according to the company's most recent 10-K filing.
Spokeswoman Sally Bowman did not return phone calls by press time.
