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[Official Guidance]

Text of PBGC Disaster Relief Relating to PBGC Deadlines in Response to Severe Storms and Flooding in South Carolina
"[PBGC] is waiving certain penalties and extending certain deadlines in response to the severe storms and flooding that began on October 1, 2015, in South Carolina.... The disaster area consists of Berkeley, Charleston, Clarendon, Dorchester, Georgetown, Horry, Lexington, Orangeburg, Richland, Sumter and Williamsburg counties." (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation [PBGC])  

[Advert.]

SPARK Forum - November 8-10, 2015 -- The Breakers, Palm Beach, FL

Join us at the retirement services industry's leading event for top marketing, sales, administration and record keeping professionals. Comprehensive agenda to meet the needs of 401(k) Plan Providers, Financial Advisors and Third Party Administrators.

[Guidance Overview]

Year-End Compliance Deadlines and Other Reminders for Multiemployer Retirement Plans (PDF)
"DB plans might need to make certain amendments as a result of MPRA... Reminders about year-end compliance matters cover new rules for DB annual funding notices, required minimum distributions, documentation for plan loans and hardship distributions, and annual notices for Section 401(k) plans." (Segal Consulting)  

[Guidance Overview]

PBGC Final Regs Will Affect Default Risk for Borrowers with Pension Plans
"The [PBGC] has adopted final regulations relieving certain sponsors of defined benefit pension plans from the obligation to report certain events that signal an increase in the plan's financial risk. The final regulations also revise many existing reportable event waivers. In recognition of the significant effect that pension liabilities can have on creditworthiness, many credit agreements refer to unwaived reportable events when defining the events of default." (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP)  

Society of Actuaries Updates Mortality Improvement Scale
"The updated scale -- MP-2015 -- reflects a trend toward somewhat smaller improvements in longevity.... The SOA's preliminary estimates suggest that updating to the MP-2015 scale released [on Oct. 8, 2015] might reduce a plan's liabilities by between zero and two percent, depending on each plan's specific characteristics." (Society of Actuaries)  

Updated Mortality Improvement Scale Issued by Society of Actuaries
"[M]ost plan sponsors that used their own mortality experience to select assumptions and that made adjustments to the 2014 tables will find this new information further supports the adjustments they made. While the new information should still be considered in those instances ... in many situations, it will not cause a plan sponsor to change its current mortality assumptions.... [P]lan sponsors that adopted the SOA's 2014 mortality tables without change will likely want to reconsider their assumptions by studying their own mortality experience and either adopting MP-2015 ... or adopting an altogether different improvement scale." (Towers Watson)  

[Advert.]

Now is a great time to join Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB)

WEB members represent more than 25 professions and 30 areas of expertise within the pension and benefits industry-including administrators, consultants, attorneys, accountants, investment managers, communications experts and benefits managers. Join today.

The Dreaded Census Questionnaire, Part One: Employee Information (PDF)
"The census questionnaire concerns both current and terminated employees, participating or not, who received a Form W-2 for the year. Typical requests include an entire database of information ... How can information about employees that aren't even participating in your Plan and people that are no longer employed by your firm be necessary to Plan compliance?" (Ekon Benefits)  

Is Company Stock a Liability to Your Retirement Plan?
"A common source of company stock in retirement plans has been the company match. Employers that want to continue this practice and reduce allocations might consider shortening the vesting period for company stock, says Holly Verdeyen, director, defined contribution investments at Russell. This way, 'participants have more opportunity, sooner, to be able diversify themselves.' ... For plan sponsors that decide to eliminate the plan's holdings entirely, it should be planned out carefully." (PLANSPONSOR)  

Fund Managers Unprepared for SEC Money Market Rules
"[In a recent poll] of 100 investment managers ... 85% said they had limited or no understanding of the [SEC's] final ruling 2a-7 and 75% said their organizations are not completely prepared for the rules to go into effect.... When doing their due diligence on their plan's investment lineup, fiduciaries must look at all relevant issues, including 'where the particular fund fits within the plan's investment strategy, the net yield received and how well the fund performs compared to relevant benchmarks, the stability of the investment team, liquidity of the fund, including issues such as redemption fees and restrictions, and the cost of the fund and compensation paid to its investment manager,' [said Bruce Ashton of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP]." (Employee Benefit News)  

Independent RIAs Struggle with Schwab Investment Menu Limitations
"The good news, RIAs say, is that Schwab is proposing to give them better control of how their clients' assets are managed and that the fees, reflecting the index-based approach, fall into the reasonable range. Yet some RIAs suspect that Schwab's presence will still be far too intrusive. 401(k) participants will get ETFs, they say, in managed account form with Schwab as the only manager." (RIABiz)  

Corporate Pension Funded Status Declines by $28 Billion in September (PDF)
"Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index The funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans worsened by $28 billion during September as measured by the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index (PFI). The deficit rose to $312 billion due to both investment losses and interest rate decreases during September. As of September 30, the funded ratio dropped to 81.7%, down from 83.3% at the end of August." (Milliman)  

Connecticut's Pension Ranks Number 48
"Connecticut's funding of its pension obligations ranks #48 in the country only to be outdone by Kentucky and Illinois. Connecticut, with a pathetic 51.9% of assets to pay future obligations isn't even close to dealing with its unfunded pension obligations.... Connecticut assumes that its pension assets will earn a future rate of return of 8%. But ... that basically means that it will need a 12% average annual return from the stock market. Any prudent fiduciary would not advise such a rosy future for the stock market." (Young Research and Publishing, Inc.)  

QLAC Searches by Advisors Double in Third Quarter
"To get quotes and product information about QLACs, advisors made 18,800 hits to the Cannex database during that three-month period ... Activity was up 138 percent from 7,900 hits on QLACs in second quarter. The database records the number of searches that annuity advisors do on a variety of single premium income annuities. It began reporting on QLAC activity just this year, in the second quarter." (InsuranceNewsNet.com)  

[Opinion]

Proposed Retiree Benefit Cuts by the Central States Pension Fund Are a 'Pension Demolition Plan'
"The Pension Rights Center has said from the beginning that the Fund could have taken other steps to truly rescue the Fund. But rather than do the work needed to find better solutions, the Fund took the easy way out: cutting the benefits of the most vulnerable -- the very people Congress intended to protect when it passed ... ERISA in 1974.... We are getting calls and letters from desperate retirees, who have been told that their benefits will be cut by between 50 to 70 percent. While many of them knew they would be getting letters about proposed pension cuts, they have been completely blindsided by how deep these cuts are." (Pension Rights Center)  

[Opinion]

Teamsters Applaud Introduction of Pension Accountability Act By Sen. Portman
"The Pension Accountability Act seeks to fix changes to multiemployer pension law that were attached to the omnibus spending bill passed in December. The Multi-employer Pension Reform Act (MPRA) allows the Treasury Department to overrule any vote taken by pension participants on proposed cuts in large plans. Portman's bill would change that part of the law by making any vote by participants binding and not subject to overrule by the Treasury Department. The legislation would also change the law so that only those ballots returned in any vote are counted." (Teamsters)  

[Opinion]

The American Retirement System Needs a Plumber
"Everything is built so the pipes don't connect.... It took visits to three websites and two phone calls -- which were only answered during business hours -- before a letter and check were mailed from the 401(k) plan. Yes, that's a paper letter and check, sent through the U.S. Postal Service. Then, when the money finally arrived at the IRA provider, it took two more calls, totaling 23 minutes, before the firm was able to invest my money. The whole process took two full weeks, which happened to be an unlucky time to have my money out of the stock market. I missed a 6 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500 index and a 10 percent jump in emerging markets." (Bloomberg)  

[Guidance Overview]

SEC Adopts CEO Pay Ratio Disclosure Rules
Topics include: [1] Where and how to make pay ratio disclosures; [2] Identifying the median employee; [3] How often must companies identify the median employee? [4] Limited exceptions for non-U.S. employees; [5] Calculating annual total compensation; [6] Must disclose methodology, assumptions and estimates; and [7] Exempt companies and transition periods. (Perkins Coie LLP)  

Vast Majority of Companies Provide Enhanced Severance Benefits Below the NEO Level in a Change in Control
"The survey responses suggest that enhancing severance for terminations in conjunction with a CIC is widespread. The vast majority (93%) of respondents indicated they do so for some portion of employees below the NEO level, with two-thirds (67%) of those companies offering enhanced cash compensation (salary and/or bonus) and accelerated vesting of equity and about a quarter (26%) offering only accelerated vesting of equity." (Towers Watson)  

Proposed Sale of Frank Russell Company's Asset Management Business
London Stock Exchange Group

Vanguard’s F. William McNabb Re-elected ICI Chairman
Investment Company Institute

NAGDCA Elects 2015 – 2016 Executive Board
National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators

Ascensus’ Information Technology Team Sponsors Philadelphia Code Camp 2015
Ascensus

Stock Options Explained in New Video, Audio and Interactive Content at myStockOptions.com
myStockOptions.com

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