Hello all, I have a question about the DB Liability formula from the Employee Compensation reading. the official text’s formula for a DB Liability(Asset) is as follows Defined Benefit Obligation from Balance Sheet + unrecognized actuarial gains (or less unrecognized losses) – unrecognized past service cost – value of plan assets from Balance Sheet = Defined Benefit Liability (or if this amount is negative, DB Asset) Intuitively, this seems backwards to me; A past service cost seems to me as something that must be paid out; it seems like it’s a liability that must be expensed. According to this formula, if I have a lot of unrecognized past service costs, my liability is decreasing, or even becoming an asset if I owe my employees a lot more than what I’ve funded my plan Assets with! here’s what I mean: say my DBO is $500. I’ve been naughty, and not recognized my employee’s services for a while, so that figure is $700. furthermore, I’ve only tucked away $50 into their plan assets. According to the formula; $500 - 700 - 50 = (-$250) So, according to this, I would post to my balance sheet a Defined Benefit Asset of $250 (ie plan is in an overfunded position of $250). I owe this fund a hell of a lot of money to be where I need to be relative to the benefits my employees are owed, so how is it that I have an Asset to declare? Conversely, let’s leave everything the same, but change the unrecognized past service cost to only $25. $500 - 25 - 50 = $375 In this case, I would post a Defined Benefit Liability of $375 (Plan is underfunded by $375). wtf? I owe less money than in the other world, so why do I post a Liability in this circumstance, and an Asset in the other one?
if you started with a sign on the DBO - it is a liability - so it has to be negative… so -500 -725 = -1225 (a bigger liability).
Here’s another way to look at it Funded Status (FV plan assets- PBO) +/- Unrecognized deferred (gains) and loses + unrecognized past service cost +/- unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites = Net Pension asset(liabilites) reported on balance sheet losses are added and gains are subtracted because G/L are not recognized immediatley. This will keep the accounting equation in balance.
magicsky, you failed ? I thought you passed last year brother
CP, I realize it was strange of me to give the formula in such a way that makes a negative value an asset, and a positive value a liability, but that’s how they did it in the example. Hendriar14 has put it in terms of a positive being an asset, but he had the signs wrong on it unfortunately, which is my dilemma; it seems more right the way he’s put it, but the text says otherwise. Here’s the same formula to solve having a positive be an asset, and a negative be a liability: Fair value of Plan Assets – Unrecognized actuarial gains (or plus losses) + unrecognized past service cost + unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites – Defined Benefit Obligation = Defined Benefit Asset (negative value is a liability) So in my example, world 1 (high service cost) still gives: 50 + 700 – 500 = $250 Asset (overfunded position) and world two 50 + 25 – 500 = -$425 Liability (underfunded position) note that I made a mistake when I calculated world 2 in my initial post, the figure for the net underfunded position should have been a liability of 425, not 375, idk why I thought $500 - 25 - 50 = $375, it’s not, it’s 425 (ie liability of 425) To see more specifically what I’m talking about, look at examples one and two on pages 199-201 of the CFAI readings (reading 24). here are the figures for example 1: DBO = 5485 unrec. transition liability = 50 unrec. actuarial losses = 59 unrecognised past service cost = 70 fair value of plan assets = 5798 they solve for a liability as a positive value, asset value as negative, but I’ll do it so that an asset is positive here: Fair value of Plan Assets 5798 – Unrecognized actuarial gains (or plus losses) +59 + unrecognized past service cost +70 + unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites +50 – Defined Benefit Obligation -5485 = Defined Benefit Asset (negative value is a liability) =492 Asset They are clearly showing that having more unrecognized costs/losses makes the fund’s asset position greater (or liability position smaller) which seems counter intuitive to me. If anyone understands that and can explain it, I’m all ears! for now, i’m gonna go robot on the formula!
to gorilla; nah, I failed. studied my little heart out and failed : /
Magicskyfairy, The formula is listed above is correct. Look at it carefully… Re: Defined Benefit Liability formula Posted by: hendriar14 (IP Logged) Date: January 3, 2011 03:38PM Here’s another way to look at it Funded Status (FV plan assets- PBO) +/- Unrecognized deferred (gains) and loses + unrecognized past service cost +/- unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites = Net Pension asset(liabilites) reported on balance sheet losses are added and gains are subtracted because G/L are not recognized immediatley. This will keep the accounting equation in balance. ie. +/- Unrecognized deferred (gains) and loses -(a gain is subtracted and a lose is added. I may have not explained it clear enough the first time.) Just remember to add a unrecognized past service cost, subtract gains, and add loses.
Simply put, the reason why it seems counter intuitive is because we’re dealing with "unrealized gains and loses. If we didn’t add back loses and subtract gains it would through off our accounting equation. Does this help?
Sorry brah, your formula just isn’t right : / again, here are the figure’s we’re working with for example 1: DBO = 5485 unrec. transition liability = 50 unrec. actuarial losses = 59 unrecognised past service cost = 70 fair value of plan assets = 5798 here’s the math using your formula: Funded Status (FV plan assets- PBO) = 5798 - 5485 = 313 +/- Unrecognized deferred (gains) and losses – 59 + unrecognized past service cost + 70 +/- unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites – 50 = Net Pension asset(liabilites) reported on balance sheet = 274 That’s just not right; you’re supposed to get a net pension asset of 492, not 274 :o
we can just save ourselves a lot of time by accepting the following as IFRS’s formula for a Defined Benefit Asset: Fair Value of Plan Assets + unrecognized actuarial losses (or less unrecognized gains) + unrecognized past service cost + unrecognized transition liabilities (or less gains) – Defined Benefit Obligation from B.S. = Defined Benefit Asset (negative value is a DB Liability) If the figure is indeed an Asset, IFRS requires the company to report the lower of that item, or this one here: Unrecognized net actuarial losses + unrecognized past service cost + PV of any economic benefits available in the form of refunds or plan reductions in future contributions to the plan (from what I understand, this = Plan Assets - DBO) = DB Asset IFRS further states that if the bottom thing is the lower item, you have to post the difference between this item and the upper item in the footnotes, though the text doesn’t say explicitly what you post it as, only that the difference is posted there. GAAP seems easier to me in this topic by just not allowing the unrecognized losses/gains to be deferred. the key to me understanding what is going on with this stupid formula has something to do with deferring those expenses and that somehow being an asset (I think, obviously not too sure tho). I know what to do, I’m just not sure why it’s being done.
Trust me it is correct, If you treat a Asset and Liability as a minus. If you subtract at liability (minus) you actually add it, not subtract. I know it seems weird, but the point is you need to add loses and liabilites and subtract gains and liabilites. here’s the math using your formula: Funded Status (FV plan assets- PBO) = 5798 - 5485 = 313 +/- Unrecognized deferred (gains) and losses – 59 + unrecognized past service cost + 70 +/- unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites – 50 = Net Pension asset(liabilites) reported on balance sheet = 274 That’s just not right; you’re supposed to get a net pension asset of 492, not 274 :o Here’s the correct math. 5798-5485=313 add back 59 (unrec. actuarial losses),add back 50 (unrec. transition liability), and 70 (unrecognized past service cost)= 492 CP was trying to explain the same thing above… Re: Defined Benefit Liability formula Posted by: cpk123 (IP Logged) Date: January 3, 2011 06:54AM if you started with a sign on the DBO - it is a liability - so it has to be negative… so -500 -725 = -1225 (a bigger liability). CP I guess I didn’t do a good job of explaining it before. The point being as long as you add back loses and subtract gains you’ll get the right answer.
ok, that’s different than what you posted initially then. It’s confusing because if you have a formula that is solving for a DB Liability as a positive value, and a DB asset as a negative value (as is done in the example in the text), you have to subtract unrecognized losses: Defined Benefit Obligation from Balance Sheet – unrecognized actuarial losses (or plus unrecognized gains) – unrecognized past service cost – value of plan assets from Balance Sheet = Defined Benefit Liability (or if this amount is negative, DB Asset) If you’re doing it the way people seem most comfortable here, which is to solve for DB asset as a positive value, then it’s basically just the reverse: Fair value of Plan Assets + unrecognized actuarial losses (or less gains) + unrecognized past service cost + unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites – Defined Benefit Obligation = Defined Benefit Asset (negative value is a liability) The formula you just used is basically the same as this one here, because funded status = Fair V of plan Assets - DBO, sooo Funded Status + unrecognized actuarial losses (or less gains) + unrecognized past service cost + unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites = Defined Benefit Asset (negative value is a liability) Still leaves me with the same dilemma of not really understanding why having more unrecognized losses and costs increases your DB Asset tho… still hazy on that.
Yeah sorry. I pulled that formula from Schweser. I’m using a combo of CFAI materials and Schweser for the exam. THey sometimes write the equations different from the CFAI, but I think it’s easiers to understand sometimes. I think in Schweser they said that you have to do the opposite mathematically because the G/L are unrealized and if you didn’t do it that way the whole accounting equation (A=L + OE) would be off. Let me know if you want me to post the example verbatum from the material. I think the way I’m going to memorize it as they way of your last post. Funded Status + unrecognized actuarial losses (or less gains) + unrecognized past service cost + unrecognized transition (assets) or liabilites = Defined Benefit Asset (negative value is a liability) Are you using any other materials besides the stuff from CFAI??
I have Stalla materials. I used it exclusively for level 1, as well as EOC questions, and that was fine. For level 2, I find it to be overall helpful, but I don’t think its well written enough that you could rely on it exclusively to pass the exam (at least I wasn’t able to). Though it was generally okay, some of the readings were weak and not well explained. The pension chapter is one of those. Also, the later economics readings were not well written imo, and most of portfolio management was also written like crap. Oh, and alternative assets was pretty badly done too. As for stuff they did a good job on, I’d say they did an okay job on Intercorporate investments, Multinational Operations, Derivatives, Fixed Income, and an okay job on ethics. The big weakness was the question bank. I found that many questions in it were wordy, too easy, but still managing to be long and tedious; kind of like if I asked you to calculate the mean of 10 numbers; not difficult to do, but takes time and is annoying. To contrast that with actual CFA exam questions, the exam questions were quick to solve (no long tedious charts or tables to draw manually), but still had a higher degree of difficulty and even a bit of creativity on some questions. All of this is just my opinion tho. how is shweser?
Schweser is not bad. It’s less verbose than the CFAI text. 
I had a buddy who passed Level II and III with just Schweser material so I’m giving it a shot. I’ll probably do EOC questions for CFAI and see if I’m missing anything from Schweser. I’m hoping to start my review in early April. As I’m going through Schweser I’m making note cards with important topics so I can do a quick refresh on the information. I’ve heard QBank sucks though for level II. If it’s anything like Level I, I’d say Schweser sometimes focuses too much on the number crunching aspect and not enough on the theory. Are you planning on reading the CFAI text cover-to-cover? I’ve heard Level II is a lot harder than Level I, but the material isn’t too bad so far. It just seems like you need to make sure you dedicate enough time to learn it and repeat a dozen times before June. Any thoughts?
yeah, read my post on the ‘Reading 23 Q5 - full and partial goodwill’ topic. I spell out my study plan there
Sorry for asking such a impertinent question without reading the entire post (because the whole thing is too long for me to go through now), finally your doubt is solved or you are still in the memorized mode? I tried a lot but this topic is against my intuition. Pls explain if you understood it.
Leave aside the formula for a while now. Here is how my thinking goes: The smoothening effect allows the A. Past service cost, B. Deferred gain / loss = (Expected - actual return), C. Transition liability / asset to be taken to the OCI & lets you amortize the things each year. So your liability includes 1. Original liability + 2. Unamortized past service cost + 3. Unamortized deferred losses (gains) + 4. Unamortized transition liability (asset) Now, if you really want to be fair to your users, IFRS would say to the makers of financial statement: “Boss, you’ve a helluva lot of liabilities. Take all of them and subtract it with your fair value of assets” Instead, what IFRS telling is: “Total liability - (point 2+3+4 above) - fair value of asset”. This stuff is blowing my mind. Can anybody please explain it with the logic?