General Motor 养老金管理-哈佛经典案例.pdf

9-206-001 R E V : D E C E M B E R 1 4 , 2 0 0 5 L U I S M . V I C E I R A General Motors U.S. Pension Funds On June 26 2003, General Motors Corporation (GM) successfully marketed the largest corporate debt offering in U.S. history, worth $17.9 billion.1 The offering included $13.6 billon worth of debt denominated in dollars, euros, and pounds, and $4.3 billon worth of dollar-denominated convertibles.2 The market received the issue positively, as investors accepted an average spread of 375 basis points with respect to the yield on comparable Treasury securities, 25 basis points below what GM and investors had initially expected.3 GM announced that it would use the majority of the proceeds ($13.2 billion) to shore up its heavily underfunded U.S. defined benefit pension plans. GM expected that this contribution, together with recovering equity markets in 2003, would reduce considerably, or even eliminate, the $19.3 billion shortfall (or 24% of the plan liabilities) existing at year-end 2002 in its U.S. pension plans.4 GM’s pension shortfall was not unique among pension plans. The steep decline in stock market valuations and the drop in long-term interest rates over the previous three years had led many pension plans, public and private, to situations of severe underfunding. In 2003, the aggregate funding ratio (assets over liabilities) of the 340 companies with defined benefit plans in the SP 500 was 87%, down from the peak of 128% at the end of