IUOE Local 399 Health and Welfare Trust

IUOE Local 399 Health and Welfare Trust

The IUOE Local 399 Health and Welfare Trust was established in 1966 to provide welfare benefits to members of Chicago-based Local 399 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Brian E. Hickey, the union's President and Business Manager, chairs the Board of Trustees alongside Financial Secretary Patrick J. Kelly and Recording Secretary Vince Winters. The trust is a classic Taft-Hartley multiemployer plan: collectively bargained employer contributions fund a defined-benefit package that covers medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, and death benefits. On the investment side, the trust's publicly observable posture is concentrated in distressed debt. Court records show the trust held a creditor claim in BY Hotel SPE-3 LLC, a Delaware-jurisdiction special-purpose entity — consistent with a fund or mandate targeting discounted loan portfolios, bankruptcy claims, or real-estate workouts. The trust participates in the Midwest Coalition of Labor, a purchasing collaborative that also includes IUOE Locals 150 and 134, suggesting that investment due diligence and benefit procurement may occasionally be scaled across union affiliates. No direct private equity, venture capital, or real estate equity positions have been confirmed from public filings. The trust manages an estimated $88 million in assets, placing it among smaller Taft-Hartley plans nationally. The absence of a dedicated investment website or public Form 5500 narrative makes a fuller breakdown of manager relationships or asset-allocation policy unavailable. The trustees named on public records are union officers rather than career investment professionals — a governance structure typical of mid-sized multiemployer plans where fiduciary oversight is handled by a board rather than an in-house CIO. The structural differentiator is the trust's embeddedness within a regional labor-coalition network. The Midwest Coalition of Labor provides a framework for aggregating member-plan demand, which can improve pricing on benefits contracts and, potentially, access to niche credit strategies that single plans would not source independently. Unlike a standalone family office or foundation, the trust's investment posture is shaped by ERISA fiduciary rules, collective-bargaining cycles, and the actuarial requirements of a defined-benefit welfare plan — a constraint set that favors income-producing, duration-matched, and deeply discounted assets.