By: Russ Kamp, CEO, Ryan ALM, Inc.

I hope that you had the chance to enjoy some beautiful Fall weather and some fun on Halloween. I’m having a tough time believing that we are already 5/6s through 2025.

Regarding ARPA and the PBGC’s implementation of this critical legislation, last week had the PBGC accepting four initial applications. Unfortunately, the e-Filing portal is now temporarily closed with 72 pension funds still waiting to submit their initial application.

In other ARPA news, no applications were approved keeping the SFA recipients at 144 since July 2021. There were also no funds asked to repay a portion of the SFA due to census errors, and it has been nearly 1 1/2 months since the last fund repaid some SFA. Fortunately, none of the systems seeking SFA were denied due to ineligibility. However, Iron Workers-Laborers Pension Plan of Cumberland, Maryland, withdrew its initial application seeking $27.1 million for the 754 plan participants.

In somewhat surprising news, Operating Engineers Local 800 and the Wyoming Contractors Association, Inc. Pension Plan, Local 240 Pension Fund, and International Union of Electrical Local 431 Pension Fund each requested to be added to the waitlist. Local 240 pension Fund also locked-in the SFA measurement date as of July 31, 2025. As I’ve been reporting, not sure how the PBGC will get through the remaining initial applications by the December 21, 2025, deadline.

Despite the Fed’s recent 25 basis point cut in the Fed Funds Rate to 3.75%-4.0%, the long end of the yield curve is seeing rates rise. The 30-year Treasury Bond yield was 4.69%, as of the writing of this post. That is up about 0.2% since the Fed’s latest action. The higher rates provide additional cost savings and coverage for SFA recipients through a cash flow matching (CFM) strategy.