Administration July 2, 2003

Pension Woes Pop Up Across the Pond

February 7, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) -Standard & Poor's Ratings Service (S&P) has cautioned that it might downgrade a dozen European companies due to pension underfunding concerns.
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Following a review of pension underfunding for more than 500 European firms, S&P said it placed the long-term and some short-term credit ratings on 10 leading European companies on CreditWatch, according to a report by Dow Jones.

S&P based its analysis on estimates of the value of equity assets in each company’s pension fund at the end of 2002, and on each company’s total unfunded pension obligations.   Much like the tempest of America’s pension funding crunch, sliding stock prices and the slumping global economic markets have intensified the problems at many firms.

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The companies affected are:

  • Michelin SCA
  • Rolls-Royce PLC
  • Deutsche Post A
  • GKN Holdings PLC
  • ThyssenKrupp AG
  • Linde AG
  • Portugal Telecom SA
  • Pilkington PLC
  • Arcelor SA
  • TPG NV

In addition, S&P said its ratings on J Sainsbury PLC and BAE Systems PLC, which already were on CreditWatch negative, also are now subject to pension-liability review.

After being placed on CreditWatch, S&P said negative listing can either be affirmed or downgraded. The current listing of the European companies is expected to be resolved within about two months.

Benefits July 1, 2003

Spam Cost Companies $874 Per Employee

July 1, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - While a can of Spam will run you $1 at the local supermarket, the annual per employee cost to your company is approximately 874 times greater.
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When the average employee receives nearly 3,500 spam messages per year, it is little wonder that so much resources are being spent by companies trying to combat the problem. In fact, in 2003, the average lost productivity per year per employee is 1.4% due to the onslaught of spam, according to Nucleus Research’s “Spam: The Silent ROI Killer” report.

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Companies have not been oblivious to the problem, with an average of one full-time IT staff person required for every 690 employees – just to manage spam and spam-related issues. However, the efforts are not without their flaws, as Nucleus’ research indicates companywide spam filters only reduce employee productivity loss by 26%.

“Companies have been quick to recognize the technology costs of spam but have been slow to understand the impact spam can have on worker productivity,” said Rebecca Wettemann, VP of Research of Nucleus Research. “The survey shows spam is slowly eroding the productivity of employees and the loss is only growing. Organizations need to recognize spam as a significant ROI factor and address this issue through spam filters and possibly with litigation. Given the current trend, one can see the day where spam materially impacts the productivity of many corporations.”

For this report, Nucleus conducted in-depth interviews with 117 employees at 76 different US companies, along with 28 IT administrators responsible for managing e-mail and other corporate applications. The full report can be obtained at www.NucleusResearch.com .

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