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

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from the Ryan ALM, Inc. team. Thank you for what you do everyday to protect and preserve defined benefit pension plans. Ron Ryan has produced a brief research thought piece that should resonate with everyone. Like most of us, Ron is suggesting that we’d prefer to have a specialist, as opposed to a generalist, tackle a medical issue for us. He goes on to say that it shouldn’t be any different for pension plans.

In this case, Ron is suggesting that given the true pension objective to SECURE the promised benefits at a reasonable cost and with prudent risk, one needs to retain a risk mitigation specialist, such as a cash flow matching (CFM) manager. We believe that Ryan ALM is a true CFM specialist as this is our only investment management strategy.

As you may recall from previous blog posts, there are tremendous benefits achieved through the use of a CFM program, including: improved liquidity, extension of the investing horizon for the non-CFM assets, the elimination of interest rate risk for that portion of the assets, lower fees, great certainty, and more. As always, we are willing to provide a free analysis on what could be achieved through a CFM portfolio for your plan. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.