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

We are pleased to share with you the Ryan ALM, Inc. Q1’24 pension monitor. This quarterly report compares different liability growth rates (based on a 12-year average duration) versus the asset growth rate for public, multiemployer, and corporate funds based on the P&I asset allocation survey of the top 1,000 plans which is updated annually.

With regard to Q1’24, Public pension funds (2.2%) underperformed Corporate Pension plans (3.7%) by 1.5% as ASC 715 discount rates showed a negative growth rate of -1.5% for Q1’24 while the discount rate using the average ROA (GASB accounting) would have appreciated by 1.8%. This outperformance by corporate pension plans was accomplished despite the much greater exposure to US fixed income within corporate pension plans (45.4%) versus both public (18.7%) and multiemployer (18.2%) and the far less exposure to US equities (12.6%) versus publics (21.9%) and multiemployer (22.2%).

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions that you might have regarding this monitor.