$20 billion club: 2024 update

Justin Owens, CFA, FSA, EA

Justin Owens, CFA, FSA, EA

Senior Director, Co-Head of Total Solutions




What a difference a year makes. Take a look at our annual report on publicly listed U.S. corporations with the largest pension liabilities and see what trends this group offers the wider corporate pension community.


The majority of trends we see in the pension industry can be found in these 21 companies. While many industry reports post estimates of what funded status changes could have looked like in the year, this is the first one published each year (since 2011) that shares actual disclosed data from 10-k report filings. We sometimes find industry estimates far from reality, and a fact check can be helpful in resetting reality.

Understanding trends among this group will help all DB sponsors in their fiduciary duties. Looking at the latest corporate disclosures gives sponsors the perspective and broad-stroke trends in the corporate pension industry.

This paper reports the findings from the following companies' DB plan contributions:

  1. 3M
  2. AT&T
  3. Boeing
  4. Caterpillar
  5. Dow Chemical
  6. Exxon Mobil
  7. FedEx
  8. Ford Motor
  9. GE HealthCare
  10. General Electric
  11. General Motors
  12. Honeywell International
  13. IBM
  14. Johnson & Johnson
  15. Lockheed Martin
  16. Merck
  17. Northrop Grumman
  18. Pacific Gas & Electric
  19. Pfizer
  20. Raytheon Technologies
  21. United Parcel Service

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