Berkshire Pension Plans Trail in Performance

With a return of 4% last year, pension plans at investment guru Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ranked last in performance among a group of 100 U.S. companies with the largest retirement plans, according to a study by benefits consulting firm Milliman.

Oil-services giant Halliburton Co. had the highest return on its pension assets last year at 21%, Seattle-based Millimanfound. The average return was 11.3%.

Buffett, who since 2002 has bet that the U.S. trade deficit would weaken the dollar, may have made similar foreign-currency investments with Berkshire’s pension assets, said Howard Silverblatt, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s in New York.

Debbie Bosanek, Buffett’s assistant, declined to comment on the Milliman study.

Most pension funds in the study are still trying to recover from losses incurred during the 2000-02 bear market, even after posting better-than-expected returns for each of the last three years, said John Ehrhardt, a principal at Milliman.

On average, the pension plans were 92.2% funded in 2005, compared with 130.8% in 1999. With interest rates already up this year, the funded level of pension plans may improve as their liabilities shrink, Ehrhardt said.