# Desert States Employers & UFCW Unions Pension Plan

Desert States Employers & UFCW Unions Pension Plan is a Pension Fund based in Phoenix, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Pension Fund
- **Headquarters:** Phoenix, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Phoenix, AZ, United States
- **Founded:** 1995
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The plan was established as a Taft-Hartley multi-employer fund to provide defined-benefit pensions for United Food and Commercial Workers members and employees of participating desert-state grocery chains. Its contributing employers include Albertsons Companies, The Kroger Co. (through banners such as Smith's and Fry's), and Safeway Inc., with union affiliates UFCW Local 99 and UFCW Local 1564 representing workers in Arizona and New Mexico. The plan's wealth origin is the negotiated contribution stream from these retail employers. The investment program reaches across venture capital, buyout, growth equity, distressed debt, mezzanine, and secondaries. Manager selection relies on a fund-of-funds and co-investment multi-manager framework, with commitments routed into both early-stage venture and expansion-stage deals. The plan's strategy covers the full private-markets lifecycle — seed to late-stage venture, buyout, turnaround, special situations, and venture debt — though specific portfolio-company names, in-house team composition, and total asset figures are not publicly detailed. The plan operates under the regulatory oversight of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, with its parent labor organization being the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. While no satellite offices or philanthropic vehicles are disclosed, the plan's club-like ties to UFCW locals and national employers form a closed-loop governance structure in which labor and management trustees jointly oversee investment policy. No recent operational events, personnel changes, or strategic mandates have been publicly communicated in the past 24 months. Structurally, the fund is a pure defined-benefit pool with no wealth-management or family-office adjacency — its sole mandate is to fund retirement liabilities for a closed group of unionized grocery workers. That gives it a long-duration liability profile well-suited to illiquid alternative commitments, but also subjects it to multi-employer withdrawal risk when participating employers exit the plan, making its funding ratio and PBGC standing more sensitive to grocery-industry consolidation than a single-employer pension would be.

## Sectors

- Private Equity
- Venture Capital
- Real Estate
- Private Credit
- Hedge Funds
- Infrastructure

## Questions

### Who are the contributing employers to this pension plan?

Albertsons Companies, The Kroger Co. (including banners such as Smith's and Fry's), and Safeway Inc. are the primary contributing employers. These companies make negotiated contributions on behalf of union-represented grocery workers in Arizona and New Mexico who belong to UFCW locals under the plan's umbrella.

### How does the plan's Taft-Hartley structure affect its investment governance?

As a Taft-Hartley multi-employer plan, governance is shared between labor and management trustees appointed by UFCW local unions and contributing employers. Investment policy and manager selection are decided jointly by this board, which operates under ERISA fiduciary standards and is insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation for defined-benefit solvency.

### Which UFCW locals are tied to this plan?

UFCW Local 99, representing retail workers in Arizona and New Mexico, and UFCW Local 1564, also based in New Mexico, are the union affiliates. Both are chartered under the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and negotiate the collective-bargaining agreements that govern employer contributions into the pension fund.

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- [Deseret Mutual Master Retirement Plan](https://altss.com/profile/deseret-mutual-master-retirement-plan)
- [Desjardins Group](https://altss.com/profile/desjardins-group)

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

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