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

We hope that you had an enjoyable Halloween weekend following the scary market action to end the week.

It is tough to believe that we are now in November. The PBGC’s effort to implement the ARPA legislation is entering the last couple of months to process initial applications, while wading through dozens of revised applications already before them. Currently, there are 46 pension funds in the queue, with five whose application must be acted on by the end of November and another 23 with December 2026 deadlines. That is a ton of work left this year.

There were no applications received during the prior week, while two funds, Colorado Cement Masons Pension Trust Fund and Pension Plan of the Automotive Machinists Pension Trust, had their revised applications approved. The Masons will receive $2.5 million in SFA for their 163 members, while the Machinists get $159.1 million for the 7,479 participants in its pension plan.

Pleased to report that there weren’t any applications denied or withdrawn in the last week, while no additional funds sought to be added to the waitlist, which hasn’t gotten a new addition since August 26th.

Significant uncertainty related to inflation, rates, and the AI trade should provide the impetus to plan sponsors to secure all of the SFA through a cash flow matching mandate. There is no reason to subject these gift assets to the whims of the market. While the SFA bucket is paying all of the benefits, the legacy assets can be managed as aggressively as you desire. That’s where risk should be taken since those investments now benefit from a lengthened time horizon.