Unisys Completes Latest in Series of Pension Annuitizations

Pension plan sponsor, Unisys Corp., an information technology company, announced Monday it has closed an agreement with F&G Annuities & Life Inc. to purchase group annuity contracts to replace the pension benefits owned to nearly 4,000 retirees and beneficiaries. The agreement, which closed on March 28, will see Unisys transfer $200 million in pension liabilities from its U.S. defined benefit plan to the insurer.

F&G will assume responsibility for paying out pension benefits to 3,800 Unisys retirees and beneficiaries. This is the sixth Unisys pension risk transfer transaction since January 2021, and it has contracted with F&G for three of the four that involve U.S. participants.

In November 2023, the company completed a $250 million PRT for 3,900 U.S. retirees, also with F&G. In March 2023, the company transferred $265 million in U.S. plan liabilities to F&G. In January 2021, the company conducted a PRT with MassMutual for $280 million.

Globally, Unisys has offloaded nearly $2 billion in pension assets since January 2021, including those from subsidiaries’ pension plans in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

According to Unisys’ most recent 10-K, the company’s U.S. defined benefit plan had $1.8 billion in pension assets and $2.2 billion in pension liabilities as of year-end 2023. The company’s international plans had $1.5 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in liabilities at the end of 2023.

The Unisys deal continues the trend toward PRT transactions, following record years in 2022 and 2023. In March, Verizon completed a $5.9 billion PRT with Prudential and RGA Insurance. In February, Shell completed a $4.9 billion PRT transaction with Prudential.