Mid-sized firms report sizable pension woes.

• Position: Pensions - Under-funded plans

Pension funding and accounting issues at General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and other corporate giants have garnered a lot of ink in recent months following three years of sour investment results. But under-funded pensions are also a serious problem at mid-sized companies, according to a new survey by SET Investments Inc.

The Oaks, Pa.-based firm recently surveyed senior finance executives at 151 companies in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and the Netherlands, just over half of them public. Sixty-two percent of the respondents confessed that their plans were under-funded -- and many of them are adjusting their corporate strategies as a result, said Jim Morris, an SEI senior vice president who helped guide the study. Just over two-thirds said their plan woes had hurt their reported results, and a fourth said they had to adjust their business plans to compensate.

Many respondents "are diverting money from their business to fund their plan," Morris said. Worse yet, more than a quarter of the respondents said they had been forced to close their...