Labor Department proposes retroactive OK for GCI 401(k) holding stock rights

The U.S. Department of Labor proposed Thursday to retroactively approve GCI's 401(k) plan briefly holding rights to buy GCI Liberty stock late last year. The plan sold the rights the day they were delivered to it, for about $134,000, which went into workers' accounts.

Federal pension law generally bars retirement plans from holding an employer's securities unless they are stock or marketable debt, and these rights were neither. The plan received 25,390 of them automatically because it held GCI Liberty Series C stock when GCI's parent offered shareholders the right to buy more shares at $27.20, about a 20% discount, according to the proposed exemption.

An independent fiduciary, Newport Trust Company, sold all the rights on Nasdaq on Dec. 1, 2025, for an average of $5.26 each. After $736.31 in commissions, the plan netted $133,642.80, invested according to participants' choices. The plan didn't pay for the fiduciary or the exemption application.

The plan had 1,839 participants and $473.8 million in assets. GCI Liberty stock made up about 0.5% of that, roughly $2.4 million, and participants can't direct new contributions into it.

GCI says it is seeking retroactive approval because the reviews needed to file the application had to be completed after the offering ended. Participants who held the stock will be notified by mail, and comments or hearing requests are due Nov. 30.