Prudential to Complete Industry’s 1st Multiemployer Pension Risk Transfer

In what is thought to be an industry first, Sound Retirement Trust, a multiemployer pension plan based in Seattle, has selected the Prudential Insurance Co. of America to complete a pension risk transfer—the first PRT to involve a multiemployer plan.

The $221 million transaction will provide pension benefits for approximately 8,700 retirees and beneficiaries.

Sound Retirement Trust is a joint labor-management board of trustees that provides retirement benefits to grocery workers of contributing employers across Washington.

Multiemployer pension plans are retirement programs jointly offered by contributing employers and labor unions and are often referred to as Taft-Hartley plans. The employers in these types of plans are usually in the same or related industries, and the plans are run by a board of trustees, with an equal number of employer and union trustees.

Under these plans, union workers can transfer from job to job with minimal disruption in retirement plan participation, as long as their employers have bargained to contribute to the same retirement plan, according to Prudential.

The Sound Retirement Trust was formed in 1965 under collective bargaining agreements between the Retail Clerks International Association, Local Union No. 1105, and Food Industry Inc. The fund reported having 155,238 participants, including 93,701 active participants, as well as $2.6 billion in assets for the 2022 plan year, according to data on its Form 5500.

“The decision to purchase a group annuity contract to cover 8,700 United Food and Commercial Workers retirees of the Sound Retirement Trust was determined over a year of careful due diligence and deliberation,” said Faye Guenther, union trustee and president of UFCW Local 3000, in a statement. “Prudential was selected because of its historic track record as one of the safest annuity providers to guarantee pension benefit payments in the United States.”

Agilis served as the annuity placement consultant to the board on the transaction, led by Michael Clark, the chief commercial officer at Agilis, and Joe Anzalone, head of its PRT business. Clark says unlike corporate PRT transactions that are primarily motivated by cost savings or as the result of a plan termination, this multiemployer plan transaction was motivated primarily by benefit security.

“By transferring the 8,700 retirees to Prudential, those retirees now have their benefits backed by one of the leading insurers in the PRT industry,” says Clark. “For the remaining participants in the multiemployer plan, they benefit from improved net cashflows going forward, which will continue to aid in the strong funded status position of the Sound Retirement Trust.”

Clark adds that many non-corporate pension plans have a large portion of retirees compared with the rest of their participant populations. He says when factoring in the present value of administrative costs—something not always captured in liability calculations—the gap between the total liability and the annuity purchase cost can narrow substantially.

Under the terms of the transaction agreement, Prudential will assume resume responsibility for paying retirement benefits to the retirees and beneficiaries, beginning September 1.

Prudential has also entered into large PRT deals this year with Verizon Communications Inc. and Shell USA Inc.