Honeywell International Inc. plans to freeze its U.K. defined benefit plan.
The supplier of domestic heating and combustion controls is proposing to freeze its legacy pension fund to future accruals and place those participants in its existing defined contribution plan, a Honeywell spokesman said. Honeywell’s U.K. business is based in Bracknell, England.
The asset size of the pension plan and DC plan could not be learned by press time.
“This change only affects future accruals for those employees still on our older DB scheme, and it does not impact pension benefits already earned,” the spokesman added.
The company said in a statement that “this change is in line with U.K. market trends, with approximately half of FTSE 100 companies either having no DB plans or freezing them to future accruals.”
“The DC scheme provides employees with greater flexibility over their pension investments and reduces risk and unpredictability for our business,” the statement said.
The proposal affects around a quarter of Honeywell’s U.K. workforce, about 1,300 employees. The remaining three-fourths of the employees in the U.K. are already enrolled in the DC plan.
Honeywell will make a final decision in November.
