Unisys Corporation announced on Tuesday that its Swiss subsidiary has transferred its pension plan to a multi-employer collective foundation. The agreement resulted in the removal of estimated benefit obligations related to the retirees under the plan, valued at approximately $103 million, from the company's balance sheet.
"We are excited about this latest step in enhancing our balance sheet and successfully completing our plan to reduce global pension liabilities by $1.2 billion," commented Mike Thompson, Unisys chief financial officer.
"While the transfer of our pension plan in Switzerland marks the achievement of this specific goal, we will continue to consider and pursue additional steps in the future to further de-risk our pension obligations through additional reductions of potential volatility and costs," added Thompson.
The recent action accomplishes the company's goal of removing a total of approximately $1.2 billion of pension obligations from its balance sheet by the end of the second quarter of 2021 when combined with Unisy’s previously-announced lump-sum cash-out offer. Alongside its separate annuity purchase for its U.S. pension plans and transfer of its Dutch pension plan to a multi-employer fund.
Unisys expects a one-time, non-cash, pre-tax settlement charge of approximately $29 million as a result of this agreement. The remainder of the Swiss plan obligations that will remain on the company’s balance sheet is roughly $56 million. That remaining sum represents the active participants of the plan.
