Companies tend to put pension-fund deficits in the same box as goodwill write-downs or hedge revaluations: accounting technicalities with little bearing on business. This convenient fiction is becoming ever harder to sustain in Europe, where falling bond yields in the wake of Brexit are generating staggering inflation in projected pension obligations. In the U.K., the liabilities of defined-benefit pension plans—whereby the employer shoulders the risks of pensioner longevity and poor investment performance—totaled £139...

Source: Wall Street Journal August 19, 2016 08:26 UTC