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

We are pleased to provide you with the weekly update on the implementation of the ARPA pension legislation. It took the New England Teamsters Pension Plan no time at all to file its application for Special Financial Assistance (SFA). This plan is categorized as a Priority Group 6 member. Those plans were only able to begin filing as of February 11th, which is exactly what they did becoming the first and only Priority Group 6 member to file as of yet. New England teamsters is seeking $5.5 billion in SFA for its 72,141 participants.

In other news, the PBGC approved the supplemental SFA applications for 4 plans, including the Retirement Plan of Local 1482 – Paint and Allied Products Manufacturers Retirement Fund, the Freight Drivers and Helpers Local Union No. 557 Pension Plan, the Sheet Metal Workers Local Pension Plan, and the Gastronomical Workers Union Local 610 and Metropolitan Hotel Association Pension Fund. These entities sought a combined $25.8 million in Supplemental SFA for their combined 6,700 participants. They will actually receive $26.7 including interest. There are still a lot of activity remaining for the PBGC, as each Priority Group still has applications that need to be filed and reviewed except for Priority Group 3 (Central States).

There were no applications either denied or withdrawn during the previous week.

The information in the graph above is limited to the initial applications (or revised initial applications) and does not include supplemental applications. We revise this data as the PBGC updates their weekly spreadsheet.