Pension Series

Thought Mortality Was Dead? Considerations for Pensions Given the IRS’s Delay in Implementing RP-2014

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The IRS’s somewhat unexpected decision to delay implementation of the RP-2014 mortality tables has impacted at least three separate aspects of pension plan strategy: calculating minimum contribution requirements; determining variable-rate PBGC premiums; and valuing lump-sum distributions to be paid out to terminated vested participants. This brief discusses what has changed and provides general considerations for all sponsors to weigh in the near term.

A Stronger Union: Addressing the Unique Investment Challenges of Multiemployer Defined Benefit Plans

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Adaptive and sophisticated strategies are necessary to serve the unique features, constraints, and needs of multiemployer plans. In this note, we explore some of the key challenges that many multiemployer plans face, discuss how to invest in light of these challenges, and provide thoughts on governance and the overall role of the investment advisor in the multiemployer context.

Navigating the Diversified Growth Fund Maze

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Diversified growth funds (DGFs) have garnered significant attention and assets—particularly amongst UK defined benefit pension schemes—as a less volatile source of long-term growth. DGFs can be valuable tools for pension portfolio management, but only if trustees understand what they are buying and how it fits into the context of the total portfolio. The simple bifurcation of the available products into traditional and absolute return strategies can be a starting point for trustees to help make sense of the market and set appropriate risk/return expectations across different market environments.

MAPping the Future of Pension Funding

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On August 8, President Obama signed the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014 (HATFA-14) into law, thereby temporarily maintaining the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. Approximately two-thirds of the financing for the law came not from transportation-related sources, but rather from an extension of the relief granted in 2012 to single-employer pension funds…

Avoid the Agg Drag

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For plan sponsors that wish to de-risk, the Agg is not the solution Some defined benefit pension plan sponsors that have not begun to de-risk are hesitant to shift out of Agg-based fixed income allocations toward longer-duration mandates in the current environment, citing the specter of rising interest rates. Lengthening the duration of the existing…