Deals & People February 9, 2009

Garen Named to New York Life Participant Strategy Role

New York Life Retirement Plan Services, a division of New York Life Investments, has appointed Deanna Garen managing director of participant strategy.
Reported by

In this newly created role, Garen will oversee New York Life’s participant communications group, the rollover strategy team and also the participant service center, according to a release. She will report to Don Salama, senior managing director of New York Life Retirement Plan Services.

Garen previously was an independent consultant as principal of Garen Consulting LLC. Prior to that, she served at Prudential Retirement as senior vice president of strategic planning and development, responsible for the development and implementation of Prudential Retirement’s overall business strategy.

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Prior to joining Prudential, Garen was head of communications and education for CIGNA’s full-service retirement business, which was acquired by Prudential in April 2004, the announcement said. She was responsible for the development and delivery of education services for retirement plan participants, including web-based solutions.

“We created this new strategic position to manage all participants’ interactions with their plan. Given Deanna’s extensive expertise and successful track-record in the industry, we look forward to her contributions in this critical function,” said Salama, in the release. “Additionally, we are pleased to be in a position to hire in such a difficult market environment. I believe it underlines our strong commitment to the retirement business.’

The Markets February 9, 2009

Tenneco Puts Match on Hold

Lake Forest, Illinois-based auto parts manufacturer Tenneco Inc. has suspended its 401(k) match for 2009.
Reported by

A company news release said the match suspension was part of a broad cost-cutting effort to deal with the slumping economy. Tenneco had matched 50%, up to the first 8% of pay.

In addition to cutting 1,100 jobs, other compensation and benefits components to the cost-cutting campaign include:

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  • eliminating 2008 performance bonuses for salaried employees
  • reducing total annual compensation for the top 50 executives on average by more than 60%
  • eliminating employee annual salary increases and implementing other salary control actions.

The company said it is also reducing capital expenditures by eliminating all discretionary capital spending including eliminating or deferring regional expansion projects and cutting spending tied to delayed customer launches; closing three manufacturing plants and one engineering facility; continuing to implement hourly layoffs at manufacturing plants worldwide; and initiating unpaid furloughs and work hour reductions for some salaried employees.

“We have and will continue to take aggressive actions to reduce costs, resize our operations and generate and preserve cash in order to weather this crisis,” Chairman and CEO Gregg Sherrill said in the statement.

Tenneco froze its defined benefit pension plan in 2007.

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