International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is a computer technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. With almost 330,000 employees worldwide and revenues of US $91 billion in 2005, IBM is the largest information technology company in the world.

IBM's U.S. defined benefit pension plans will stop accruing new benefits effective December 31, 2007. All benefits earned through year-end 2007 by participants in its pension equity and cash balance plans will be preserved as of that date. These benefits will be available to participants when they leave IBM, under the same payment options currently in effect.

IBM's U.S. defined benefit qualified pension plan was fully funded in excess of the projected benefit obligation with more than $48 billion in assets at the end of 2005. No funding contribution was made to the U.S. plan in the fourth quarter of 2005.

For the IBM Personal Pension Plan, we included the following factors:

Data comes from the most recent IBM Personal Pension Plan Form 5500 (Year: 2005) found at www.freeERISA.com. If you have questions or concerns, the best person to ask is your Plan Administrator or your financial advisor.

Please let us know if you have any questions, if you find this guide useful, or if you have any suggestions to help improve it.