Major U.S. companies
including Clorox and Kraft are favoring more bonds in
the mix for their employees' defined benefit pension plans, even amid signs the
three-decade bull run in bonds is on its last legs.
The
$2.5 trillion U.S. corporate pension market enjoyed a robust recovery in 2013,
paced by stocks, as the Standard &
Poor's 500 Index rose the most since 1997. That helped pension funds close a
funding hole that opened after the global credit crisis of 2008, so that the
average corporate pension was funded at about 95 percent at the end of 2013,
compared with 75 percent at the end of 2012, Mercer Investments data show.
Now that
they're more confident that they have the money to meet their pension
obligations, corporate pension managers are pulling back from the perceived
risk of the stock market and buying U.S. government and corporate bonds,
even though many expect bond prices to fall in coming years.
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