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

It is a joyful September Monday morning for long-suffering Giants fans. After opening the football season against the Cowboys with a loss in nine previous opening night games, including 1986 when they won the Super Bowl, last night’s 28-20 victory was so SWEET! I’d like to continue writing about this game, but I should get to the task at hand.

Regarding ARPA, the PBGC is not reviewing 37 applications for Special Financial Assistance (SFA), including 18 funds that were casualties of mass withdrawal prior to 2020.

During the prior week, Local 108 Retirement Plan, a Maplewood, NJ, based plan, submitted a revised application, while the Employee Pension Benefit Plan of Local 640 I.A.T.S.E. from Brooklyn, NY, submitted an initial application. Together they are seeking $7.7 million in SFA for their 1,182 plan participants.

There’s little to report beyond the couple of submissions, as there were no applications approved, denied, or withdrawn. Furthermore, there were no funds seeking to be added to the waitlist.

Last week I produced a blog post that highlighted an analysis that we’d completed for a large DB pension plan. The output showed that we could build an investment grade corporate bond portfolio with a YTW of 6.09%. Just imagine how comforting it is to have the ability to secure promised pension benefits with near certainty. The cost to defease future benefits was reduced by 70.5%! Future recipients could potentially benefit greatly from the rising U.S. interest rates. Give us the opportunity to produce a free analysis for you.