Introduction

  At the direction of the Comptroller General of the United States, GAO is conducting a study of sponsors of tax-qualified, single-employer, defined benefit (DB) pension plans that had 100 or more total participants according to the most recently available data. Specifically, we are asking plan sponsors about their experiences with DB plans, benefit freezes, if any, and factors that may have contributed to their decisions with regard to these DB plans.

In addition, we are asking firms like yours, the 100 largest DB plan sponsors (by number of 2004 plan participants) that were part of the Fortune 500 or Fortune Global 500, about their recent experience with DB pension plans. Furthermore, we are gathering these firms' reactions to the current environment for such plans and how the plan or plans may be a part of the firm's total compensation structure.

We stress that the information you provide will be kept confidential. Our report will contain aggregated data, not information that identifies any individual plan sponsors. GAO will NOT identify your firm or any of the firms responding to the survey. Further, as part of GAO protocols any dissemination of data compiled in this survey will be stripped of all firm or personally-identifiable information. When responding, please feel free to consult with others who are also familiar with this topic, if you think it will help you give a more accurate answer.

You are able to print a paper copy of this survey. Please feel free to print copies of the survey and distribute these to others within your firm who may have expertise on specific questions or sections of the survey. However, please have one individual enter the collected data into the actual web survey.

Please complete this questionnaire within about three weeks of receipt or by January 11, 2008. We understand there are great demands on your time; however your cooperation is critical to providing the Congress with complete and balanced information on the state of and trends relating to the single-employer, DB system.

Thank you for your time and assistance.
 

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