April 2002 (Revised October 2003)
Case
HBS Case Collection

Pension Plan of Bethlehem Steel, 2001, The

Format:Print
| Pages:16

Abstract

Bethlehem Steel's 2001 bankruptcy filing inspires an employee's daughter to evaluate her father's pension plan, weeks after September 11's tragedies exacerbated a weakening U.S. economy and just months before her father planned to retire. Battered equity markets and plummeting interest rates foretell a "pension crisis," while the daughter discovers the history and government role in U.S. private defined-benefit pension plans. She tries to apply her newly acquired finance skills as an MBA student to estimate the pension plan's true asset-liability condition and to advise her father about his upcoming retirement from a historically dominant U.S. company that has lost its competitiveness to global producers.

Keywords

Asset Management; Financial Instruments; Retirement; Steel Industry; United States

Citation

Tufano, Peter, Zvi Bodie, and Akiko M. Mitsui. "Pension Plan of Bethlehem Steel, 2001, The." Harvard Business School Case 202-088, April 2002. (Revised October 2003.)