Prudential to Fulfill $221 Million in Retirement Promises for Sound Retirement Trust in Industry’s First Multiemployer Pension Risk Transfer

Published 3 months ago via Business Wire

The Prudential Insurance Company of America has been selected in an industry-first multiemployer plan pension risk transfer (PRT), to fulfill retirement benefit promises for the Sound Retirement Trust, a Seattle-based joint labor-management board of trustees that provides grocery workers of contributing employers with retirement benefits.

The transaction will settle approximately $221 million of Sound Retirement Trust pension liabilities and provide added retirement security for approximately 8,700 retirees and their beneficiaries.

“Prudential is proud to help protect the life’s work of these Sound Retirement Trust retirees, who literally spent their careers helping to feed Americans,” said Glenn O’Brien, head of Institutional Retirement Strategies Distribution at Prudential. “We are excited for the opportunity to apply Prudential’s deep retirement experience and leadership to help these individuals have a secure retirement, so they can live a better life, longer.”

Multiemployer pension plans, like the one sponsored by the board of trustees of Sound Retirement Trust, are retirement programs jointly offered by contributing employers and labor unions and are often referred to as Taft-Hartley plans. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 allows employers in the same industry, such as construction or transportation, or in this case, the retail food industry, to contribute to a retirement plan for union members based on a collective bargaining agreement. 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.

“The decision to purchase a group annuity contract to cover 8,700 United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) retirees of the Sound Retirement Trust was determined over a year of careful due diligence and deliberation,” said union trustee and president of UFCW Local 3000, Faye Guenther. “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.”

“The thoughtful approach by the board of trustees resulted in a win-win for their retirees. The retirees who will receive payments from Prudential benefit from having their benefits secured by one of the leading providers in the PRT industry,” said Michael Clark, chief commercial officer at Agilis and annuity placement consultant to the board for this transaction. “For the participants that remain in the multiemployer plan, they benefit from the improved net cash flow and reduced funded status risk.”

Under the terms of the agreement in this transaction, The Prudential Insurance Company of America, a subsidiary of Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU) will assume responsibility for paying retirement benefits to this transaction’s population of Sound Retirement Trust retirees and their beneficiaries beginning Sept. 1, 2024.

Prudential has been an innovator and leader in the pension risk transfer market since 1928, collaborating with clients to deliver solutions that meet each organization’s unique needs to help them de-risk and meet their financial objectives.

Prudential revolutionized the modern pension risk transfer market with its pioneering pension buyouts with General Motors and Verizon in 2012. Many similar transactions followed, including HP Inc. in 2021, IBM in 2022 and, most recently, Shell USA and a second transaction with Verizon in 2024.

ABOUT PRUDENTIAL

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a global financial services leader and premier active global investment manager with approximately $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of June 30, 2024, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prudential’s diverse and talented employees help make lives better and create financial opportunity for more people by expanding access to investing, insurance, and retirement security. Prudential’s iconic Rock symbol has stood for strength, stability, expertise, and innovation for nearly 150 years. For more information, please visit news.prudential.com.

With nearly 100 years of retirement experience, the Retirement Strategies team at Prudential delivers industry-leading solutions for growth and protection to more than 2.5 million individual and institutional customers.1 The business expands access to retirement security through its Individual Retirement protected accumulation and income strategies and its Institutional Retirement lines of business spanning U.S. Pension Risk Transfer, International Reinsurance, Stable Value, and Structured Settlements.

1 As of June 30, 2024.

© 2024 Prudential Financial, Inc. and its related entities. Prudential, Prudential Retirement Strategies, the Prudential logo, the Rock symbol and Rock Solid are service marks of PFI and its related entities, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide.

Insurance products are issued by The Prudential Insurance Company of America (PICA), Newark, New Jersey. PICA is a Prudential Financial company. PICA is solely responsible for its financial condition and contractual obligations.

ABOUT SOUND RETIREMENT TRUST

The Sound Retirement Trust provides employees across Washington state with benefits for their retirement through a defined benefit pension plan. The Sound Retirement Trust is sponsored and administered by a joint labor-management board of trustees. The members of UFCW 3000 are over 50,000 members working in grocery, retail, health care, and other industries across Washington state, northeast Oregon, and northern Idaho. UFCW 3000 is a chartered member of UFCW International with over 1.4 million workers in North America.

ABOUT AGILIS

Agilis provides actuarial and investment consulting using a strategic approach to create innovative solutions for its clients, leading them on the journey through implementation. Focused on solutions entailing outsourced CIO (OCIO), actuarial and investment consulting, derivatives management, specialty investment management strategies, pension administration services, annuity buyouts and plan terminations, and pooled employer 401(k) consulting, Agilis finds dynamic solutions that create financial momentum for its clients and create breakthrough strategies to seize growth opportunities. For more information, please visit agilis.llc.

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