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

I hope that you enjoyed a long, restful weekend. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the US service men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice to enable the rest of us to continue to enjoy our freedom.

With respect to the ARPA legislation and the PBGC’s yeoman effort to implement, there was some activity last week. In fact, there were three plans that filed applications and one that received approval. Local Union No. 226 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Open End Pension Trust Fund, Local 1783 I.B.E.W. Pension Plan, and the Pressroom Unions’ Pension Plan each filed its initial application45 last week seeking SFA. The three plans are non-priority group members and in total they have asked for $127.4 million for just over 3,400 plan participants.

Happy to report that the UFCW Regional Pension Fund received approval for its application. The non-priority fund will receive $54.5 million, including interest, for its 4,605 participants. This bring the # of approved applications to 73 and a total of $52.2 million in final SFA amount approved including interest and FA loan repayments. There was no other activity report including applications denied, excess SFA repaid, plans added to the waitlist or plans on the waitlist setting a lock-in date for valuation purposes.

There is the possibility that 128 additional plans may receive SFA before the legislation expires. This total includes those under review, those plans that have withdrawn and not refiled, and finally, those plans on the waitlist that have yet to file the initial application.