By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc.

As reported in their March 18th update on the PBGC website, two more funds – Milk Industry Office Employees Pension Trust Fund and Local 584 Pension Trust Fund – received approval for their SFA applications bringing the number of approved applications to seven. These two funds will receive $224.2 million in federal grants to support the benefit payments for their 2,250 plan participants. The approvals last week were the first since Local 408 received their good news on January 24th. This reduces the current number of pending applications to 25, with an April 1st start date for Priority Group 3 plans looming.

Let’s hope that last week’s activity is a positive sign that the PBGC will ramp up the pace of acceptance for these outstanding applications. The plan participants shouldn’t be kept waiting, especially those from Priority Group 2 that had their benefits slashed under MPRA. Have a great week!