I think you should read Sears financial statements and you will see that Sears Canada contributed $18.6 million in cash in 2016 into the DB plan.  Your statement about improving the bottom line by not contributing to the plan is incorrect, as accounting rules don't use cash contributions as the expense amount on the company's income statement.  Instead the pension expense amount is the future pension amount earned in the current year by the existing employees plus an interest expense on the amount of unfunded pension liability.  By having a high deficit in the DB plan the expense on the company's books actually goes up because the interest expense on the deficit is higher, hurting the bottom line.  So there is actually an incentive for companies to fund the plan from an income statement point of view.  This is totally opposite to what you have said in your post.