Regulations are often controversial, but few in recent history have had so many different interpretations and large revisions as the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program for underfunded multiemployer pension plans (MEPP). Now that the dust has settled, one of the biggest risks for plan sponsors is not taking full advantage of the opportunities that are […]
February 2023
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) included substantial relief funds for the most troubled US multiemployer pension plans through its Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program. The SFA program was created to help seriously underfunded multiemployer pension plans maintain solvency through 2051. Multiemployer pension plans receiving SFA funds now have a unique opportunity to […]
November 2022
Most defined benefit plans—including public, multi-employer, and even frozen corporate plans—can benefit from private investment (PI) strategies. It is fairly common knowledge that private investments offer important value in the form of increased expected investment returns, and that they can be instrumental in improving funded status and achieving other plan goals. Despite this, many plan […]
September 2022
Pensions have lagged other institutional investors in the digital asset space and may be letting one of the most profound changes in the digital economy pass by. Hear from Joe Marenda, Head of Digital Assets at Cambridge Associates, on how blockchain technology could disrupt plan sponsors’ current portfolio investments and about its potential to generate […]
September 2022
Pensions may be missing out on a technological disruption that could represent the most profound new development in the digital economy since its start in the late 1990s. To date, they have lagged other institutional investors in the digital assets space. Barring a few well-publicized exceptions, investments by pensions into digital assets on the blockchain […]
May 2022
Pension Risk Transfers (PRTs), including the increasingly popular partial annuity purchase, are a set of tools used frequently by US plan sponsors to de-risk their pension plans. These transactions are intended to lower the risk and cost of the plan by shrinking its size. However, in many cases, they may achieve the opposite result. Specifically, […]
March 2022
Many defined benefit plans sponsors may be denying themselves valuable opportunities to generate additional returns by overestimating their liquidity needs. Targeting a liquidity supply/demand ratio of 2x–3x can help portfolios tolerate periods of market stress.
November 2021
While alpha is commonly recognized as a key lever in maintaining or improving funded status, it is often mistakenly limited to purely equity or lower-liquidity investment opportunities. For plan sponsors, this can be a costly misconception. Cambridge Associates’ research shows that active fixed income management can contribute valuable alpha, resulting in significant benefits to plan outcomes.
August 2021