Owens-Illinois Inc., Perrysburg, Ohio, purchased a group annuity contract from Prudential Insurance Co. of America to transfer about $200 million in pension plan liabilities, the company said in a news release on Tuesday.
Prudential will take responsibility of paying benefits to about 7,500 of the company's U.S. retirees and their beneficiaries in the Owens-Illinois Hourly Retirement Plan, the news release said, and will reduce the plan's liabilities by 10% to 15%. The news release did not provide information on the purchase premium.
The company also has a plan for salaried employees, according to its most recent 10-K filing. That plan was frozen to benefit accruals on Jan. 1.
According to that filing, the assets for all the company's U.S. pension plans totaled $1.91 billion and projected benefit obligations totaled $2.19 billion as of Dec. 31, 2015, for a funding ratio of 87.2%.
According to the company's most recent Form 5500 filings, the Ninth Amended & Restated Hourly Retirement Plan had $1.419 billion in assets and the Tenth Amended & Restated Salary Retirement Plan had $491 million, both as of Dec. 31, 2015.
Sasha Sekpeh, investor relations officer, could not be immediately reached to provide further information.
