NCR Corp. offers lump sum to vested former employees in latest derisking action

NCR Corp., Duluth, Ga., will offer a voluntary lump-sum window to about 7,000 former employees vested in its U.S. pension plan, said Scott Sykes, company spokesman.

The offer, which will begin on Sept. 6 and end on Oct. 20, will be made to former employees who are vested in the plan but have yet to retire. Payments to those who accept the offer are expected to be made in December.

It is the latest in a series of derisking strategies the company has taken this decade, the most recent of which was in 2014 when NCR purchased a group annuity contract from Principal Life Insurance Co. to transfer about $160 million in pension liabilities, representing 4,500 retirees receiving benefits from its pension fund. It affected retirees who began receiving benefits before Jan. 1, 1994. That same year, the company offered a similar lump-sum window to about 20,000 U.S. retirees who began receiving benefits between Jan. 1, 1994, and April 1, 2014. NCR also previously offered lump sums to former employees who were vested but had yet to retire in 2012.

As of Dec. 31, the U.S. defined benefit plan, which was frozen in 2006, had $1.722 billion in assets, and $2.185 billion in projected benefit obligations, for a funding ratio of 78.8%.