POST RETIREMENT BENEFIT PLANS

3 Months Ended

Jan. 31, 2021

During the three months ended January 31, 2021, an annuity contract for approximately $100.0 million was purchased with United States defined benefit plan assets and the pension obligation for certain retirees in the United States under that plan was irrevocably transferred from that plan to the annuity contract. Additionally, lump sum payments totaling $1.5 million were made from the defined benefit plan assets to certain participants who agreed to such payments, representing the current fair value of the participant’s respective pension benefit. The settlement items described above resulted in a decrease in the fair value of both the plan assets and the projected benefit obligation of $101.5 million and a non-cash pension settlement charge of $8.5 million of unrecognized net actuarial loss included in accumulated other comprehensive loss.

As a result of the settlement described above, the Company remeasured the United States defined benefit pension plan as of November 30, 2020. The result of this remeasurement was a net increase of $20.8 million in the funded status of the plan. Plan assets increased $46.7 million due to higher than expected returns, which was partially offset by a $25.9 million increase in the projected benefit obligation due to a decrease in the discount rate from 3.01% as of October 31, 2020 to 2.76% as of November 30, 2020.

The components of net periodic pension cost include the following:


	Three Months Ended January 31,
(in millions)	2021		2020
Service cost	$	3.1	$	3.2
Interest cost	4.5		6.6
Expected return on plan assets	(7.9)		(10.3)
Amortization of prior service cost	—		3.5
Recognized net actuarial loss	3.8		—
Net periodic pension cost	$	3.5	$	3.0

As previously disclosed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended October 31, 2020, the Company expects to make employer contributions of $28.7 million, including benefits paid directly by the Company, during 2021.

The components of net periodic pension cost and net periodic post-retirement benefit, other than the service cost components, are included in the line item "Other expense, net" in the interim condensed consolidated statements of income.