Sal Tripodi's ERISA Outline refers to the use of liquidating trusts or partnerships to facilitate the distribution of illiquid assets when terminating a plan. Basically the plan distributes the illiquid assets to the trust or partnership, which in turn issues participation certificates to the participants. When the liquidating trust or partnership sells the assets it makes disbursements to the participants. Anyone ever attempt this sort of thing? What benefit would this have over making distributions "in-kind"?

Sal's method can help if (a) more than 1 EE wants a part of the same in-kind asset, (b) an in-kind asset is too large to be absorbed and distributed as part of just one EE's benefits, and (c) to sell the in-kind asset later, only a single trustee or general partner's signature is needed.