The following post comes to us from Lawrence K. Cagney, partner and chair of the Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits Group at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, and is based on a Debevoise & Plimpton client update by Mr. Cagney, Jonathan F. Lewis, Elizabeth Pagel Serebransky, Alicia C. McCarthy, and Charles E. Wachsstock.
Buyers and sellers in typical leveraged buyouts of subsidiaries and divisions have long recognized that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) could perceive its own interests as threatened in the transaction and, consequently, might choose to interfere with the parties’ bargain. This concern has to date been viewed as largely theoretical, as the PBGC typically either does not appear in a transaction at all, or, if it does appear, extracts relatively modest protections from the parties. Two recent developments suggest that the PBGC intends to become more active in buyout transactions:
- In April, the PBGC initiated proceedings to terminate a pension plan in connection with Compagnie de Saint-Gobain’s sale of its US metal and glass containers business to Ardagh Group. Initiation of a plan termination is typically viewed as an attempt to scuttle a transaction.
- In a recent interview, a senior PBGC official announced that the PBGC intends to become more aggressive in scrutinizing future buyout transactions and to allocate more of its resources in this area.
