Teamsters Local 786 Building Material Pension Fund

Teamsters Local 786 Building Material Pension Fund

The Teamsters Local 786 Building Material Pension Fund provides retirement benefits to union members in the Chicago building material and lumber industries. The fund operates under the governance of a board of trustees including Secretary and Treasurer Bryant Smith, Vice President James Goddard, and Trustee Jose Melendez. The underlying wealth originates from collectively bargained employer contributions negotiated by Teamsters Local 786, part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The fund's investment strategy is heavily concentrated in secondaries and real estate, with a marked preference for accessing private markets through secondary transactions rather than primary fund commitments. Asset-class exposure includes global mixed-use real estate via vehicles such as Starwood Distressed Opportunity Fund XII Global, an Asia-Pacific real estate fund-of-funds strategy, and an industrial data center portfolio. The geographic footprint spans North America and Asia-Pacific through these commitments. Related benefit structures for the same union membership include the Building Material Welfare Fund Local 786, the Local 786 Severance Trust Fund, and the Lumber Employees Local 786 Retirement Fund. These affiliated entities create an integrated benefits ecosystem serving different needs within the same labor community. The fund also maintains a philanthropic structure through the Local 786 Scholarship Fund, providing educational support to members and their families. Structurally, the fund operates as a classic Taft-Hartley multi-employer pension plan — a jointly trusteed vehicle governed equally by union and contributing employer representatives. This governance architecture mandates consensus-driven investment decisions and often produces conservative liquidity management, which aligns with the observed strategy of using secondary market purchases to gain private-asset exposure without long-duration lockups.