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

It appears that the “Summer doldrums” may have settled in as it relates to the PBGC and ARPA. The last couple of weeks have seen little action. Now, I don’t mean to be snarky toward the PBGC given the tremendous energy that has been expended to date (46 initial applications approved and $47.4 billion allocated), but there is little to show recently. In this most recent week, there were no new applications filed, approved, or denied (fortunately). There was, however, one application withdrawn. The Legacy Plan of the UNITE HERE Retirement Fund, a Priority Group 6 applicant, withdrew the initial application on June 8th seeking $1.025 billion in SFA for their 91,744 plan participants.

The only other notable event during the prior week was the addition of District Council 37 Local 389 Home Care and Professional Employees Pension Fund to the waiting list. This brings to 110 the number of multiemployer plans that now reside on this list hoping to have the opportunity to file an SFA application. This most recent addition did not “lock in” a valuation date, yet. With 110 plans sitting on this waitlist, there is no doubt that the PBGC still has a tremendous effort before them.

As always, we welcome your comments and questions. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions related to how to appropriately invest the SFA proceeds to maximize the potential coverage of benefits and expenses. The higher US interest rate environment is a blessing for plans looking to defease their pension liabilities. Have a great week.