Manitoba Telecom Services (“MTS”)(TSX:MBT, StockForum), a Winnipeg-based national communications provider, announced today that the Supreme Court of Canada re-instated a lower court ruling in regards to the handling of one of MTS's pension since the company went private in 1997.
The dust hasn't settled from the decision as the company needs to review implications of today's complex ruling before it can determine the specific impacts on both the pension plan and the company in general.
According to the news release, “Pension benefits are expected to be increased by $43 million, plus interest calculated at a rate equal to the pension plan's rate of return since 1997, which could increase pension benefits in time by up to $147 million. The Company will disclose the specific implementation plan once known.”
Due to a recent equity financing push, MTS has enough cash liquidity to satisfy all pension funding obligations and it anticipates its current credit rating will be maintained with strong free cash flows.
However, executives weren't happy as MTS CFO, Wayne Demkey explained, “This is a very disappointing outcome, but we were prepared for this scenario and are confident that should we need to make additional pension payments this year, we can fully manage its financial impact while maintaining our long-term strategy for delivering shareholder value.”
Paul Beauregard, Chief Corporate and Strategy Officer, commented, “We continue to feel that the Company has complied with all applicable pension law, as well as the provincial legislation that privatized MTS.”
He went on to explain, “At the time of privatization, the Company viewed its obligation was to implement a pension plan that provided pension benefits equivalent to what existed prior to privatization. We fulfilled that obligation. Benefits today are absolutely identical to what they were at privatization, a fact that everyone has agreed to.”
Beauregard continued, “Prior to privatization, pension funding was shared with employees on an equal (50/50) basis. Since privatization, the Company has made commitments of approximately $765 million to this MTS Pension Plan, approximately $557 million of which has already been paid in cash. Employee contributions over the same period totaled $163 million. Last year alone, MTS contributed $14 for every dollar contributed by its employees.”
He then concluded, “The bottom line is that plan members have continued to receive a very attractive pension benefit that is in every way equivalent to or, in the Company's view, better than they would have received under the old plan.”
MTS was in the news recently when the company made a milestone addition to its national IP fiber network.
Shares dipped 4.31% on the news to $29.51 per share.
Currently there are 76.8m outstanding shares with a market cap of $2.3 billion.