(Bloomberg) — The board of Eastman Kodak’s pension plan sold a portfolio of illiquid assets to the Mastercard Foundation and is considering winding down the rest of the fund, as the company looks to tap the roughly $1 billion surplus it built up over the years.
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The pension plan’s board instructed the committee that manages assets for the fund to start positioning it for a potential sale, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday, but at the time the decision wasn’t final.
The plan has also agreed to sell private equity ownership interests and other illiquid assets valued at $764.4 million to the Mastercard Foundation for $550.6 million, the filing said. This sale is expected to close at year end.
Kodak shares surged as much as 25% as of 10:30 a.m. in New York, the biggest intraday move since February, when Bloomberg reported that the company was mulling tapping the pension surplus. Kodak said that even after capitalizing a replacement pension and paying an excise tax, it expected to get $530 million to $585 million of proceeds from the moves. That was more than than the company’s market capitalization on Friday.
In recent years the plan, which manages a pool of retirement assets for more than 37,000 people, poured money into hedge funds and private equity and turned a $255 million deficit into a significant surplus.
Kodak estimates the pension will have surplus assets of between $885 million and $975 million after its liabilities have been paid, according to the statement, which also said that this would not affect the plan’s members. Liabilities to current and future retirees will be covered through a combination of lump-sum distributions and the purchase of an annuity from an insurance company, for those that prefer that option.
In March Kodak said it was moving management of the pension to an outside firm while it weighed how best to utilize the extra assets.
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