Talk about your golden opportunity. Retirement planning specialists in the greater Detroit area have been working overtime for weeks as they prepare for the prospect of a huge population of General Motors retirees with some major decisions to make.
According to the Detroit News, area advisors have been inundated with business as some 42,000 white-collar, non-union retirees deal with the choice between receiving ongoing pension checks or taking a one-time deal to cash out and invest the money themselves.
Friday is the deadline for most to make that decision, which for many longtime employees, could result in a one-time payment of more than a half-million dollars.
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That's meant a great chance for Metro Detroit-based advisors to help the retired workers weigh out their options – and keep an eye out for overly enthusiastic relatives and genuine scam artists interested in relieving the retirees of their massive checks.
"You have control over the asset, which includes the control to screw it up," Dean Thurman, a senior partner in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based InvestWise, told the News. "You need a belt and suspenders and bubble wrap on that money to last you the rest of your life."
Offers were made to workers who retired between 1997 and last December, as part of an orchestrated move on the part of the troubled but now rebounding automaker to shore up its future liabilities.
Those employees who get cold feet can be mostly reassured that their future pension checks will be coming from Prudential, into whose massive annuity account General Motors has placed its pension funds.
That move, to be completed by the end of the year, will end GM's existing pension plan and clean more than $26 billion in liabilities off of GM's books.
Some GM employees say they resent the company for dropping its pension plan and placing the onus on them, especially as the company uses its extra financial flexibility to diversify in markets including China.
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