Corporate pension plans have been pummeled by the broad slump in equity and commodity markets. After ending 2007 will a surplus of $60 billion, S&P500 companies now have a combined deficit of around $300 billion.

This from the Guardian (UK):

Investors should start seeing the effect on year-end balance sheets, and reforms under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 are likely to complicate matters by forcing companies to spend cash to shore up their plans.

“If your pension plan was invested mainly in equities and equities are off 20 percent, all of a sudden you have a 20 percent shortfall,” William Hernandez, chief financial officer of paint maker PPG Industries Inc , told Reuters in an interview earlier this month.

“It is going to force a huge number of companies into making large contributions next year, at the worst possible time,” he added.

Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index <.SPX> are on their way to record underfunded status and few plans are expected to turn a profit this year, S&P’s senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt said in a note to clients last week.