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One issue has shot up the list of chief executives' biggest concerns in recent years: pensions.
A combination of regulatory, accounting and market changes is pressing many companies to consider radical changes to the way they run their plans.
Wall Street banks see huge opportunities to offer advice and products and have been setting up teams to do so.
Private equity firms are expected to take a more radical approach to the risk management of portfolio companies' pension plans.
David Oaten, head of JPMorgan's US pension advisory group, says clients are seeing the pension plan "as more of a risk management problem than an asset management problem".
According to a report from McKinsey, banks are right to expect big changes in the US pensions landscape. It predicts an acceleration in the moves by companies to freeze plans, so that members stop accruing benefits.
The proportion of assets in US pension plans that are frozen will rise from below 25 to as high as 60 per cent in 2012. There will also be a shift in the portfolios, away from the traditional 65-35 per cent equities-bonds split.
McKinsey thinks at least half the $2,300 billion in private sector defined-benefit assets will be invested in different products by 2012.
Both trends are much more advanced in the UK, where about 70 per cent of plans are frozen or terminated and many of the top sponsors have made big shifts from equities into fixed income.
The slow pace of change in the composition of US plans partly reflects the more restrictive regulatory regime. The Arisa pensions legislation, which stipulates that fiduciaries must discharge their duties solely in the interests of plan beneficiaries, has been interpreted as ruling out sponsors taking actions that would have incidental benefits for the company. Companies have been worried that anything they do that appears to benefit them would run the risk of a legal challenge.
Some big plan sponsors are starting to act. General Motors has shifted 20 per cent of its $101 billion pension portfolio into bonds, taking them to 52 per cent.
Observers point to the radical approach some companies are taking to their health care liabilities as a possible model for pension plans.
In December, Goodyear Tire & Rubber reached agreement with the United Steelworkers union to pay $1 billion into a healthcare trust to take on the medical benefit liabilities of union retirees. The move rid the company of its exposure once and for all.
General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, which have a $100 billion health care obligation to their retirees, are expected to discuss a similar scheme with the United Auto Workers. Currently, the only third parties approved by regulators to take over pension liabilities are insurance companies.
But, following the formation of a several vehicles in the UK to buy out pensions, banks are working on similar plans in the United States. None has yet received regulatory approval, which is likely to be a long process.
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