International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, N.Y., plans to contribute about $500 million to its non-U.S. pension plans in 2017, the company disclosed in a 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
The majority of the contributions, according to the filing, will go to pension plans in Japan, Spain and the U.K. The company contributed $464 million to the non-U.S. plans in 2016.
IBM does not plan to make any contributions to the U.S. plans, citing it is not legally required to do so, and did not make any contributions to those plans in 2016. The funding ratio for the U.S. plans as of Dec. 31 was 98.4%, up from 97.4% the previous year.
As of Dec. 31, U.S. pension plan assets totaled $51.405 billion, while projected benefit obligations totaled $52.218 billion. The discount rate dropped to 3.8% at the end of 2016 from 4% a year earlier.
Non-U.S. plan assets as of that date totaled $36.02 billion, while projected benefit obligations totaled $44.981 billion, for a funding ratio of 80.1%, up from 79.9% the previous year. The discount rate dropped to 1.8% in 2016 from 2.4% in 2015.
