Visteon Wants to Eliminate Retiree Benefits
August 13, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Finance
Visteon, one of the world’s leading auto parts suppliers, has asked for permission from its bankruptcy judge to terminate retiree life insurance benefits and retiree health care. If the bankruptcy judge, who is located in the state of Delaware, gives permission, this would affect both former and current Visteon employees.
In 2004, Visteon had nearly $19 billion in sales and approximately 70,000 employees around the world. However, the company’s success started to suffer and by May of 2009, Visteon was in such trouble that it was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
When Visteon filed bankruptcy, they had about $4.5 billion in assets and $5.3 billion in debts. Recently, the company said that more than $300 million of its liability is in the form of retiree benefits.
This news is just more proof that you should save money for retirement even if you think you’ll be receiving some sort of retirement benefits from a former employer. As we’ve seen, especially in recent years, those benefits could disappear.
Visteon Retiree Benefits (Image: Flickr)
