Sound Retirement Trust

Investment decisions are made by the board of trustees, which includes both union-appointed and employer-appointed trustees. Faye Guenther, President of UFCW Local 3000, serves as a union trustee. Employer trustees represent Albertsons and Kroger. The board structure is standard for Taft-Hartley plans: both sides must agree on asset allocation, manager selection, and benefit policy.

The trust is the pension fund for members of UFCW Local 3000 who work at Albertsons and Kroger stores in Washington state. The union and the employers jointly sponsor the plan under a Taft-Hartley collective bargaining framework. Contributions come from the employers; the union represents the participants in fund governance.

The trust commits to generalist venture capital funds rather than making direct startup investments. Fund commitments are the primary vehicle. Specific stage preferences are not publicly documented, but the generalist mandate suggests exposure across seed, early-stage, and growth-equity venture managers.

The trust primarily commits to commingled funds — Invesco Core Real Estate Fund, TA Realty IX, Ares US Real Estate Opportunity Fund III, and multiple venture capital funds. Direct co-investment activity is not publicly confirmed. The infrastructure and private markets sleeves are also fund-based.

In 2017, the trust purchased a group annuity contract from Prudential, transferring a block of retiree liabilities to the insurer. The move reduced the plan's funded-status volatility and removed longevity risk for those participants. Benefit payments for that cohort are now Prudential's obligation, not the trust's — a structural de-risking common among US corporate plans but less frequent among Taft-Hartley funds.