Retirement Plans

6 Months Ended

Jul. 30, 2022

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

Retirement Plans

Retirement plans

Signet operates a defined benefit pension plan in the UK (the “Pension Scheme”) which ceased to admit new employees effective April 2004. The Pension Scheme provides benefits to participating eligible employees. Beginning in Fiscal 2014, a change to the benefit structure was implemented and members’ benefits that accumulate after that date were based upon career average salaries, whereas previously, all benefits were based on salaries at retirement. In September 2017, the Company approved an amendment to freeze benefit accruals under the Pension Scheme in an effort to reduce anticipated future pension expense. As a result of this amendment, the Company froze the pension plan for all participants with an effective date of October 2019 as elected by the plan participants. All future benefit accruals under the plan have thus ceased as of that date.

On July 29, 2021, Signet Group Limited (“SGL”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into an agreement (the “Agreement”) with Signet Pension Trustee Limited (the “Trustee”), as trustee of the Pension Scheme, to facilitate the Trustee entering into a bulk purchase annuity policy ("BPA") securing accrued liabilities under the Pension Scheme with Rothesay Life Plc ("Rothesay") and subsequently, to wind up the Pension Scheme. The BPA is held by the Trustee as an asset of the Pension Scheme (the "buy-in") in anticipation of Rothesay subsequently (and in accordance with the terms of the BPA) issuing individual annuity contracts to each of the 1,909 Pension Scheme members (or their eligible beneficiaries) ("Transferred Participants") covering their accrued benefits (a full “buy-out”), following which the BPA will terminate and the Trustee will wind up the Pension Scheme (collectively, the “Transactions”).

Under the terms of the Agreement, SGL has contributed £14.0 million to date (approximately $18.9 million) to the Pension Scheme to enable the Trustee to pay for any and all costs incurred by the Trustee as part of the Transactions. The initial contribution of £7.0 million (approximately $9.7 million) was paid on August 4, 2021, and the Trustee transferred substantially all Plan assets into the BPA on August 9, 2021. SGL contributed an additional £7.0 million (approximately $9.2 million) to the Pension Scheme on March 23, 2022 to facilitate the Trustee funding the balancing premium to Rothesay. SGL is expected to contribute up to an additional £2.0 million (approximately $2.4 million) to the Pension Scheme to enable the Trustee to pay the remaining costs of the Transactions and wind up the Pension Scheme.

On April 22, 2022, the Trustee entered into a Deed Poll agreement with Rothesay and a Deed of Assignment with SGL to facilitate the assignment of individual policies for a significant portion of the Transferred Participants (“Assigned Participants”). The Deed Poll and Deed of Assignment, collectively, irrevocably relieve SGL and the Trustee of its obligations under the policies to the Assigned Participants. In addition, during the first quarter of Fiscal 2023, certain Transferred Participants elected to take a voluntary wind-up lump sum distribution and thus no further liability exists for this group.

In the first quarter of Fiscal 2023, as a result of the Deed Poll and Deed of Assignment, as well as the voluntary lump sum distributions, the Company has determined that a transfer of all remaining risks has occurred with respect to these groups of participants. Thus, management concluded that the Company triggered settlement accounting and performed a remeasurement of the Pension Scheme, which resulted in a non-cash, pre-tax settlement charge of $131.9 million recorded within other non-operating income (expense) within the condensed consolidated statement of operations during the first quarter of Fiscal 2023.

In the second quarter of Fiscal 2023, as a result of additional voluntary lump sum distributions made from the Pension Scheme, the Company has determined that a transfer of all remaining risks has occurred with respect to this group of participants. Thus, management concluded that the Company triggered settlement accounting which resulted in a non-cash, pre-tax settlement charge of $0.9 million recorded within other non-operating income (expense) within the condensed consolidated statement of operations during the second quarter of Fiscal 2023.

The settlement charges recorded in the first half of Fiscal 2023 relate to the pro-rata recognition of previously unrecognized actuarial losses and prior service costs out of AOCI and into earnings associated with the Assigned Participants, as well as the voluntary lump sum distributions noted above. The Company expects to settle the remaining obligations and wind up the Pension Scheme by the end of Fiscal 2023.

The components of net periodic pension benefit cost for the Pension Scheme are as follows:

	13 weeks ended				26 weeks ended
(in millions)	July 30, 2022		July 31, 2021		July 30, 2022		July 31, 2021
Components of net periodic benefit (cost) income:
Interest cost	$	—	$	(1.0)	(0.9)		(2.0)
Expected return on plan assets	(0.3)		1.3		0.3		2.6
Amortization of unrecognized actuarial losses	(1.1)		(0.2)		(2.0)		(0.4)
Amortization of unrecognized net prior service costs	(0.1)		(0.1)		(0.2)		(0.1)
Pension settlement loss	(0.9)		—		(132.8)		—
Total net periodic benefit (cost) income	$	(2.4)	$	—	$	(135.6)	$	0.1

All components of net periodic benefit cost are charged to other non-operating income (expense), in the condensed consolidated statements of operations.