# Waterfront Employers - ILA Pension Plan

Waterfront Employers - ILA Pension Plan is a Pension Fund based in Jacksonville, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Pension Fund
- **Headquarters:** Jacksonville, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Charleston, SC, United States
- **Founded:** 1938
- **Assets under management:** <$500M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** ilalocal1593.org
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/ila-local-1593

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The Waterfront Employers - ILA Pension Plan was established in 1957 as a jointly trusteed Taft-Hartley fund, born from the collective bargaining framework between the South Carolina Stevedores Association and the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District of the International Longshoremen's Association. It provides defined-benefit pensions to dockworkers who load and unload vessels across the Port of Charleston. Employer contributions and union negotiations define the plan's funding, making its fiduciary posture inseparable from the health of Southeast container-shipping labor markets. The plan has evolved from a conventional defined-benefit allocator into a niche secondaries investor. Its commitments target private equity, real estate, and infrastructure secondaries — buying LP interests from other pensions and endowments seeking liquidity, typically at a discount to NAV. Public pension disclosures capture commitments to funds managed by HarbourVest (Dover Street X), Blackstone (Strategic Partners Fund VIII), and Landmark Partners. The geographic footprint extends beyond South Carolina through the underlying fund portfolios, which hold assets across North America and Western Europe. The plan does not appear to make direct co-investments or primary fund commitments outside the secondaries channel. The plan's most recent public disclosures place total assets in the sub-$500 million range, though the last reported actuarial valuation predates the current rate environment. It operates from a single office in Charleston with a lean administrative structure — investment decisions rest with the Board of Trustees, often advised by an external consultant. Adjacent entities include a welfare fund administered under the same trust framework, covering health and disability benefits for covered workers. The plan participates in the ILA's multi-employer pension network, a structure that provides some actuarial risk-sharing but also exposes it to the funding health of affiliate locals. What separates this fund from a generic Taft-Hartley plan is its concentrated secondaries mandate. Most multi-employer pension plans of this vintage and size default to manager-of-managers public equity programs or balanced-portfolio models. By anchoring to secondaries, the trustees sacrifice quarterly liquidity for the J-curve mitigation and vintage diversification that purchasing mature LP portfolios provides. This is a governance bet — one that works only if the board's investment committee maintains the discipline to reinvest distributions into new secondaries cycles rather than drifting back toward liquidity when port labor contracts tighten employer contributions.

## Sectors

- Secondaries & Special Situations

## Questions

### Is the plan strictly secondaries, or does it make primary fund commitments as well?

Public disclosures suggest a near-exclusive focus on secondaries. The plan commits to funds that buy LP portfolios from other institutional investors, not to primary-vintage vehicles making direct company investments. This is a deliberate liquidity-management strategy for a mature defined-benefit plan with negative cash-flow dynamics as the ratio of active workers to retirees declines along the Charleston waterfront.

### What is the relationship between the Pension Plan and the ILA Welfare Fund?

Both the pension and welfare funds are administered under the same Agreement and Declaration of Trust and governed by the same Board of Trustees. The pension plan covers retirement benefits, while the welfare fund handles health, disability, and other fringe benefits for covered longshore workers. Contributions from stevedoring employers are split between the two funds per the collective bargaining agreement. Their investment portfolios are separate, though trustees often oversee both.

## Related profiles

- [Waterford Group](https://altss.com/profile/waterford-group)
- [Waterfront Industry Pension Plan](https://altss.com/profile/waterfront-industry-pension-plan)

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Last updated: 2026-07-08T22:38:32.364Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/waterfront-employers-ila-pension-plan

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