A.H. Belo, Belo Corp. to Split Retirement Pension Plan

A.H. Belo Corporation announced Thursday that the company and former parent Belo Corp. have agreed to split The G. B. Dealey Retirement Pension Plan into separately sponsored plans, effective around Jan. 1, 2011.  

In February 2008, Belo Corp.'s newspaper businesses and related assets were spun off into a separate publicly traded company, A.H. Belo Corporation.

Created in 1943, the GBD Pension Plan is a defined benefit plan and its 9,300 participants include current and former employees of A.H. Belo Corp. and Belo Corp., and their respective subsidiaries.  Benefits under the GBD Pension Plan were frozen in 2007.   

Under the new agreement, Belo Corp. and A.H. Belo shall each be solely responsible for contributions made to their own respective plans. The split of the GBD Pension Plan will not change the amount of the benefits any participant has accrued or is currently receiving.   

"The decision to split The G. B. Dealey Retirement Pension Plan is one of the final steps in completely separating the affairs of the two companies,” Robert W. Decherd, A. H. Belo chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.  

The GBD Pension Plan was closed to new participants on June 30, 2000 except for certain union employees at The Providence (R.I.) Journal, for whom the plan was closed to new participants on July 30, 2004. On March 31, 2007, the GBD Pension Plan was frozen and employee participants as a whole ceased earning additional benefits.  

At the time of the freeze, employee participants received an additional five years of service credit under the GBD Pension Plan and supplemental annual transition payments for five years were established under a separate plan subject to certain conditions.