After 18 months of uninterrupted improvement, the solvency health of Canadian pension plans dipped slightly in the first quarter of 2014, according to Mercer.
More than one-third of Canadian DB plans were fully funded at the end of the first quarter.
The financial health of corporate America's largest pension plans improved significantly in 2013 as funding improved to a level not seen since the start of the financial crisis, according to a new analysis by Towers Watson.
In the third quarter of 2013, the market value of Canada’s employer-sponsored pension funds grew 3.1% to $1.3 trillion, according to Statistics Canada.
Towers Watson has recently implemented an innovative solution addressing hundreds of millions of dollars of pension obligations in a single transaction with one of its clients.
U.S. corporate pension plans in January 2014 gave up all of the gains they had achieved in the fourth quarter of 2013.
The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a lower court ruling that the pension surplus that existed when Manitoba Telephone Services was privatized in 1997 belongs to the workers and retirees and must be repaid.
Michigan's governor is working with the state legislature to allocate up to US$350 million ($388.4 million) over the next 20 years to assist in saving retiree pensions by using tobacco settlement revenues.
Canadian pension plans posted solid gains in 2013 as global equity markets continued to surge during the fourth quarter.
Air Canada estimates that its $3.7 billion pension deficit has been eliminated within the past year and will have a small surplus, partly due to a 13.8% return on investments.