Hardinge Inc. Pension Plan

Hardinge Inc. Pension Plan

The Hardinge Inc. Pension Plan is a legacy corporate defined benefit plan originally sponsored by Hardinge Inc., the Elmira, New York-based manufacturer of precision machine tools. The plan provided retirement benefits to former employees of the company's US operations. In January 2025, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation assumed trusteeship, a step taken when a plan lacks sufficient assets to pay guaranteed benefits and the sponsoring employer can no longer sustain the obligation (per PBGC official records, 2025). Under PBGC trusteeship, the plan's investment strategy shifts from a corporate pension portfolio to the PBGC's centralized asset management framework. The agency manages roughly $70 billion across its combined trust funds, allocating primarily to fixed income and public equities with a liability-driven investment approach. No direct investments, co-investments, or private placement activity are associated with this terminated plan. Benefit payments to the 601 participants continue under the statutory limits of Title IV of ERISA. The Hardinge plan is a small, terminated entity with no active investment team or internal allocation function. There is no disclosed commitment pace, manager roster, or private-market exposure specific to this plan. The plan's ongoing costs and benefit disbursements are absorbed into PBGC's multi-employer and single-employer program operations. This plan does not operate as a going-concern allocator. Its structural distinction is its termination status — it functions solely as a benefit-paying entity under federal trusteeship, with no capacity for new investments, discretionary mandates, or external manager selection. For an institutional allocator, the plan is a non-entity post-trusteeship.