AT&T’s Athene Pension Transfers Called Too Risky by Rights Group

AT&T Inc. retirees challenging a transaction that shifted responsibility for funding nearly 100,000 pensions to an insurance company received support from the Pension Rights Center, which argued the move fell short of legal standards.

Pension risk transfers—in which employers move workers off their pension plans by purchasing annuities—must be done using the “safest available annuity” in order to satisfy legal requirements, the consumer advocacy group said in a Jan. 10 amicus brief. AT&T’s process in selecting annuities from subsidiaries of Athene Holding Ltd.—which retirees criticize as overly risky and improperly connected to private equity—fell short of this requirement, the ...