Baxter International Sued Over Retirement Plan Investment Option

Baxter International Inc.'s $4.3 billion retirement plan is plagued by a poorly performing stable value fund that carries unnecessary risk while offering paltry returns, a former employee alleged in a new lawsuit.

The Baxter plan’s stable value fund held guaranteed investment contracts with multiple insurance companies that allowed those companies to reap a “windfall” at the expense of workers’ retirement savings, the employee said in a proposed class action complaint filed March 28 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Stable value funds are conservative investments meant to provide a modest, guaranteed rate of return while ...