Neiman Marcus 2008 Annual Report Download - page 124

Table of Contents
Changes in the assets held by the Pension Plan in fiscal years 2009 and 2008 are as follows:
Fiscal years
(in thousands) 2009 2008
Fair value of assets at beginning of year $ 313,427 $ 324,632
Actual return on assets (44,227 ) (15,456 )
Contribution 15,000 15,000
Benefits paid (12,206 )(10,749 )
Fair value of assets at end of year $ 271,994 $ 313,427
Funded Status. The funded status of our Pension Plan, SERP Plan and Postretirement Plan is as follows:
Pension Plan SERP Plan Postretirement Plan
Fiscal years Fiscal years Fiscal years
(in thousands) 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008
Projected benefit obligation $ 427,995 $ 354,229 $ 92,152 $ 77,566 $ 17,920 $ 20,336
Fair value of plan assets 271,994 313,427 — — —
Accrued obligation $ (156,001 )$ (40,802 )$ (92,152 )$ (77,566 )$ (17,920 )$ (20,336
Obligations for our employee benefit plans, included in other long-term liabilities, are as follows:
(in thousands)
August 1,
2009
August 2,
2008
Pension Plan $ 156,001 $ 40,802
SERP Plan 92,152 77,566
Postretirement Plan 17,920 20,336
266,073 138,704
Less: current portion (5,069 )(4,165 )
Long-term portion of benefit obligations $ 261,004 $ 134,539
The $127.4 million increase in our employee benefit obligations was primarily driven by 1) a decrease in the actual return of
our pension plan assets of approximately $70.3 million and 2) a decrease in our discount rate from 6.75% at August 2, 2008 to 5.90%
for the Pension and SERP Plans at August 1, 2009 and 5.8% for the Postretirement Plan at August 1, 2009, which resulted in increases
in the obligations related to our employee benefit plans aggregating approximately $57.9 million. As of August 1, 2009, we have
$69.0 million (net of taxes of $44.8 million) of adjustments to such obligations recorded as increases to accumulated other
comprehensive loss.
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2008, we reduced our recorded liability for projected benefit obligations payable by the
Pension Plan by $26.1 million and by the SERP Plan by $6.3 million to reflect the impact of freezing benefits provided under these
plans as of December 31, 2007, as more fully described below. The total pension curtailment gain of $32.5 million was recorded as
other income in our consolidated statements of operations.
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