dept of labor form 5500 - useful data on 401(k)s

[Rob Relyea]

I’ve been playing with the data published via form 5500 and schedules. Data here: https://www.efast.dol.gov/5500Search/

Here is some of the info I harvested for Costco, Amazon, and Microsoft's 401(k)s (harvested from 2021 CSV files, so may not be the latest data that is available)

Code: Select all

WA : ISSAQUAH
    COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION: COSTCO 401K RETIREMENT PLAN
        Service Providers:
           - T ROWE PRICE RPS INC :  (Recordkeeping & information management | Trustee(bank, trust company, or similar) | Trustee(directed) | Investment management | Participant loan processing | Participant communication | Other services | Direct payment from the plan | Investment management fees paid indirectly by plan | Shareholder servicing fees | Float revenue | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Other fees)
           - MONDRESS MONACO PARR LOCKWOOD PLLC :  (Consulting(general) | Direct payment from the plan)
           - UBS FINANCIAL SERVICES INC. :  (Investment advisory(plan) | Direct payment from the plan)
        Available Investments:
           - T. ROWE PRICE TRUST COMPANY
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2005 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2010 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2015 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2020 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2025 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2030 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2035 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2040 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2045 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2050 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2055 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2060 TRUST
                 : T. ROWE PRICE RETIREMENT 2065 TRUST
                 : TRP RETIREMENT BALANCED TRUST
WA : REDMOND
    MICROSOFT CORPORATION: MICROSOFT CORPORATION SAVINGS PLUS 401K PLAN
        Service Providers:
           - ARTISAN PARTNERS LIMITED PARTNERSHI :  (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - DIMENSIONAL FUND ADVISORS :  (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL :  (Participant loan processing | Securities brokerage commissions and fees | Recordkeeping fees | Investment management fees paid directly by plan | Account maintenance fees)
           - PIMCO :  (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - RUSSELL INVESTMENTS :  (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - STRATEGIC ADVISORS, INC. :  (Investment advisory(plan) | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
        Available Investments:
           - BLACKROCK INSTITUTIONAL TRUST COMPANY, N.A.
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2025 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2030 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2035 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2040 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2045 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2050 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2055 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2060 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2065 FUND N
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX RETIREMENT FD N
                 : SHORT-TERM INVESTMENT FUND
           - FIDELITY MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY
                 : FIDELITY CONTRAFUND COMMINGLED POOL
                 : FIDELITY GROWTH CO. COMMINGLED POOL
           - GEODE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY, LLC
                 : SPARTAN SMALL- MID CAP VALUE INDEX
           - VANGUARD FIDUCIARY TRUST COMPANY
                 : VANGUARD EMPLOYEE BENEFIT INDEX FD
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 1000 GR INDEX TR
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 1000 VAL INDEX TR
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 2000 GR INDEX TR
           - WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.
                 : WELLS FARGO STABLE VALUE FUND C
WA : SEATTLE
    AMAZON.COM SERVICES, LLC: AMAZON 401(K) PLAN
        Service Providers:
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : RECORDKEEPER (Participant loan processing | Sub - transfer agency fees | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
        Available Investments:
           - SEI TRUST COMPANY
                 : HARRIS OAKMRK INTL 3
                 : PIMCO TOTAL RTN II
           - STATE STREET BANK & TRUST COMPANY
                 : SS RSL LGCPGR IDX C
                 : SS RSL LGCPVAL IDX C
                 : SS RSL SMMDCP IDX K
           - STATE STREET BANK AND TRUST COMPANY
                 : SS RSL LRG CAP GR CLASS I
                 : SS RSL SMALL/MID CAP IDX CLASS I
           - STATE STREET GLOBAL ADVISORS TRUST COMPANY
                 : SS RSL LRG CAP VAL CLASS I
           - VANGUARD FIDUCIARY TRUST COMPANY
                 : VANG INST 500 IDX TR
                 : VANG RET SAV TR III
                 : VANG RET SVNG TR II
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2015
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2020
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2025
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2030
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2035
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2040
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2045
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2050
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2055
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2060
                 : VANGUARD TARGET 2065
                 : VANGUARD TARGET INC
                 : VG IS TL INTL STK MK
                 : VG IS TOT BD MKT IDX

Still exploring other interesting data to harvest…and considering how to make it easy to find and useful for employees.

Ideally, the forms that employers have to fill out about their 401(k) would include the ticker symbols and expense ratio. Would be easier to grade each of these 401(k) investment choices, if that data was easier to get for all plans. Wonder if Dept of Labor would be receptive to adding that to the form?

[toddthebod]

Ideally, the forms that employers have to fill out about their 401(k) would include the ticker symbols and expense ratio. Would be easier to grade each of these 401(k) investment choices, if that data was easier to get for all plans. Wonder if Dept of Labor would be receptive to adding that to the form?

Many 401(k)s offer collective investment trusts that don't have to ticker symbols.

[Rob Relyea]

Understand that many investment choices have cuspid, but not ticker.
They all have Expense ratios though.

[ClaycordJCA]

This topic is now in the Investing - Theory, News & General forum.

[Rob Relyea]

For those curious, here are links to the full 5500 pdf reports (from 2022) for those three companies.
In order to create that summary report, my programming code is accessing the data from those forms that the department of labor publishes openly.

Microsoft form 5500:
https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazon ... 904001.pdf

Costco form 5500:
https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazon ... 800001.pdf

Amazon form 5500:
https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazon ... 747001.pdf

[Rob Relyea]

The wiki has the very useful:
How to campaign for a better 401(k)

My question is whether a computer doing analysis of the fund choices listed in the 5500 form for every company would be helpful ammo/info in the campaign to improve 401(k) choices for more employees.

[FrugalProfessor]

I was similarly impressed when I discovered the DOL site many years ago. I believe BrightScope used to aggregate the 5500 forms into more useful data. The most relevant link I can find now is this one: https://www.ici.org/research/retirement/dc-plan-profile

When I advocated for major reform of our university's retirement plan ($5B assets), I relied heavily on 5500 queries as well as benchmarking of publicly available plans. It is not hard to observe Harvard's retirement plan menu, for example. Simply google "Harvard retirement plan" and you easily arrive to these links:
* https://hr.harvard.edu/files/humanresou ... lineup.pdf
* https://www.tiaa.org/public/tcm/harvard

It's also easy to Google each plan's recordkeeping fee structure. The best practice is $/year, rather than % of assets. With enough negotiating clout, you can get the annual recordkeeping fee < $30/year per head. Fidelity currently charges me $29/yr (total) to recordkeep my 7-figure 401a, 457, and 403b.

Where the 5500 really shines is its ability to go back in time to see historical retirement offerings. I used this data to demonstrate how stable a passive-only menu would be. No kicking out underperforming funds because, by definition, low-cost index funds don't underperform.

I wrote a blog post on the topic here: https://frugalprofessor.com/how-to-lobb ... ment-plan/

I found this resource to be invaluable as well: https://www.cfainstitute.org/-/media/do ... bution.pdf

In conclusion, the retirement system in the US is a disaster (both DB and DC). The decision makers at institutions really have no idea what's going on. And the "independent fiduciary" consultants who HR pays to advise them have huge conflicts of interest. They have a huge incentive to recommend the inclusion of active funds on the menu to guarantee themselves downstream consulting revenue for monitoring/replacing the inevitable underperforming actively managed fund (which they previously deemed to be worth of including on the menu).

<end of rant>

PS, with large enough plan assets, you can qualify for investment in Vanguard's Collective Investment Trusts, which further drives down the investing costs to the consumers. The CIT fee for target-date funds is 0.045%, total US stock market is 0.014%, and total int'l stock market is 0.059% - 0.15% of tax alpha = negative 0.091%. Economies of scale at its finest when you get the bad actors out of the way.

[Walkure]

PS, with large enough plan assets, you can qualify for investment in Vanguard's Collective Investment Trusts, which further drives down the investing costs to the consumers. The CIT fee for target-date funds is 0.045%, total US stock market is 0.014%, and total int'l stock market is 0.06% - 0.15% of tax alpha = negative 0.091%. Economies of scale at its finest when you get the bad actors out of the way.

How is there tax alpha inside of a retirement account?

[FrugalProfessor]

PS, with large enough plan assets, you can qualify for investment in Vanguard's Collective Investment Trusts, which further drives down the investing costs to the consumers. The CIT fee for target-date funds is 0.045%, total US stock market is 0.014%, and total int'l stock market is 0.059% - 0.15% of tax alpha = negative 0.091%. Economies of scale at its finest when you get the bad actors out of the way.

How is there tax alpha inside of a retirement account?

https://frugalprofessor.com/wp-content/ ... -alpha.png

Also, check out difference in performance between CIT and MF here:
* CIT: https://institutional.vanguard.com/iipp ... FS2069.pdf
* MF: https://institutional.vanguard.com/iipp ... FS1869.pdf

[Rob Relyea]

I was similarly impressed when I discovered the DOL site many years ago.

Thanks for the pointers. Great work.

Trying to figure out how to add your learnings and nuggets from your post to my automation ideas.

[Rob Relyea]

I now grab total assets and participants...and have created an output text file for ~241,177 employers using the 2021 CSV files.

Now have moved to one text file per state, sorted by city then company name:
https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... /employers
[updated url: 11/20/2023, no longer organized by state]

would love advice on what data is most important to scrape to calculate things like FrugalProfessor mentioned ... how much the record keeper is being paid per participant? and more.

Note: I think that some employers list their investment option as one thing...and that I need to teach my code to go look up that "one thing" which is really a list.

[Rob Relyea]

Now this has 2022-2017 data for all companies it can find.
It uses their EIN number to collect the same companies.

Now have moved to one text file per state:
https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... /employers
[updated url: 11/20/2023, no longer organized by state]

Still just experimenting with the output format.
Likely will eventually host this on bogle.tools/401k (or similar) and provide interesting analysis of companies 401k plans.

[livesoft]

This thread reads like the formation of another BrightScope which got bought out:
https://www.investopedia.com/brightscop ... rightscope

I'm pretty sure BrightScope started by data mining DOL 5500s. Apparently, the principals used their buyout money to develop something for cryptocurrency assets.

I used my spouse's employer's 5500 to see what was going on there, but it was just better to ask my spouse about her 401(k) plan. That is, what makes data become "useful data"?

I have an idea: Find employer 401(k) plans with a large number of employees (participants) but also high-fees and no index funds. Sue them.

Oh, wait: https://www.investmentnews.com/new-stra ... led-243673

[Rob Relyea]

That is, what makes data become "useful data"?

After looking at it for a few days, here are some of my thoughts:

- data in some company's 5500 forms is useful, however it could be easier to access
- some company's forms make it really tricky to actually see the list of investments? It is almost like they are trying to hide something...
- some companies have stopped filing the report, despite the fact that they are ongoing concerns. Why?
- although I might be able infer expense ratio ballparks, the dept of labor should require that data as part of the form.


Not sure exactly where I’m going, but I can imagine that more daylight can only help.
Open your state's file from my output data, and start walking around...what does it make you think?

Not every employee has a knowledgeable Boglehead to advocate. Given the data you see in the output files I have included and what is in the the 5500 submitted… what do you think would be useful to help people understand the quality of their plans?

[FrugalProfessor]

This is quite the endeavor you're proposing! I agree (with livesoft (and myself)) that this looks a lot like the service that BrightScope used to sell. As a researcher, I was vaguely interested in purchasing BrightScope data but never did so.

You can see how researchers are using 5500 data by querying "5500 retirement" into Google Scholar:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e ... ment&btnG=

Or alternatively, "5500 BrightScope":
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e ... cope&btnG=

Looking at the data you've already collected, I found a family member's medium-sized business (~300 employees) but not a friend's local business (25 employees and plan assets of $53k per their 2022 5500 filing). Have you already applied a size/asset filter to your already populated list that would have bypassed my friend's local business?

As someone who recently advocated a retirement plan change, and also as a researcher, here would be my wish list of data + questions to answer:
* It looks like many of your 5500 entries (including my family member's) don't have the asset allocation breakdown. Usually these are located as an attachment on the last page of the 5500. To me, this is the most interesting info in the entire 5500. That said, when I looked up the 5500 for my friend's very small company, it doesn't have the fund-level holdings. From my experience, however, most of these decent-sized plans have the actual fund-level holdings.
* Conditional on scraping the actual fund-level holdings, it would be great to have it mapped to a TICKER. This wouldn't work for collective investment trusts (CITs), but it would be easy enough to have a proxy ticker mapping for such cases (e.g. Vanguard Total US Stock Market Trust => Vanguard Total US Stock Market Institutional Plus Index (VSMPX)). CITs remain relatively rare and limited to the largest and best governed plans.
* With the above information, it'd be really interesting to compute an asset-weighted expense ratio for each plan. This would lead to several interesting questions: How disbursed is this average expense ratio across plans (i.e. what does this histogram look like; weighted by employee count vs not)? What are the characteristics of employers with high (low) average expense ratios? Do plans with high expense ratios indeed exhibit lower performance (e.g. Bogle's "costs matter hypothesis"), or are they somehow capturing positive alpha in spite of their higher expenses? Are larger plans better governed?
* What is the number of funds on the menu (counting TDF family's as one)? Does higher # of funds correlate to higher overall plan fees or worse overall realized plan performance?
* I'd be curious to see how stable menus are over time with fund additions/deletions. What precedes a fund deletion/addition? Is it simply naive return chasing by plan sponsors (or, more accurately, their advisors)? Do higher expense ratio funds more often result in deletions? How often are employers turning over their menus? Do plans with higher (lower) turnover have better performance? My prior is that poorly governed plans listen to bad consultants that promote selection of actively managed funds. When they inevitably underperform, they recommend jumping to the next actively managed fund that has recently outperformed.
* Does the menu include "the brokerage window" (where employees have access to essentially the universe of off-menu mutual funds)? If so, what percent of plan assets are invested in this brokerage window? Does this percentage correlate to other plan parameters (e.g. the lack of index funds on menu, too few funds on menu, etc)?

I don't think you can answer these questions with 5500 data, unfortunately:
* What is the recordkeeping fee structure ($/head vs % of assets)? What does this work out to when converted to % of assets (or vice versa)? I unfortunately don't see this clearly reported on the 5500. I've always had to dig deeper on an employer's website to find it.
* It would be great to infer who their "independent fiduciary" consultants are and to see if they offer predictably lousy advice across all of their clients (e.g. excessive fees, lower performance, undiversified fund offerings, etc). I know that our consultant was predictably bad across their clients. Our plan design occurred in spite of our consultant's best efforts to sabotage it.

I'll stop ranting. Happy to brainstorm more if you're interested. It sounds like a pretty impressive project you're attempting to do.

In a perfect world, it would seem to me that each DC plan would converge on the following, pretty much eliminating every single retirement plan lawsuit I've read about over the past decade:
* Simple menu comprised only of low-cost index funds.
* Low-cost, indexed TDF as "default" allocation. Vanguard's 0.08% ER TDF family is an appropriate benchmark.
* Brokerage window for those wanting more complexity.
* Low-cost money market option (ours is VMRXX, currently yielding 5.3%).
* Transparent recordkeeping fee. Explicit; not baked implicitly into fund expenses. $/head. As low as economies of scale will allow.

[Rob Relyea]

Looking at the data you've already collected, I found a family member's medium-sized business (~300 employees) but not a friend's local business (25 employees and plan assets of $53k per their 2022 5500 filing). Have you already applied a size/asset filter to your already populated list that would have bypassed my friend's local business?

I’m currently filtering out any form with no investments listed. I see that is probably a mistake. If you dm me the company, I can verify the reason it is not showing up in my output.

Update: talking with FrugalProfessor offline, it seems like his friends form didn't show up in my data because it is a 5500-sf (short form)... Data is published for 5500 short forms, but I haven't harvested it yet.

Update: I've recreated the output files (by state) after removing the filter for having "at least 1 investment". This means that it is currently listing some benefit plans, etc... But it lets you see some interesting things....

[Lyrrad]

It looks like many Vanguard 401(k) plans have their fund options publicly available online, with their costs.

The pages are in the form:

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https://retirementplans.vanguard.com/PubFundChart/EMPLOYER_ID/NUMERIC_ID

If you do an internet search for:

Code: Select all

"https://retirementplans.vanguard.com/PubFundChart/"

you'll find many plans and their details.

[Rob Relyea]

It looks like many Vanguard 401(k) plans have their fund options publicly available online, with their costs.

The pages are in the form:

Code: Select all

https://retirementplans.vanguard.com/PubFundChart/EMPLOYER_ID/NUMERIC_ID

If you do an internet search for:

Code: Select all

"https://retirementplans.vanguard.com/PubFundChart/"

you'll find many of plans and their details.

useful tip. thanks.
now, why doesn't the 5500 form include all that same data? (at least the ticker symbols and expense ratio)

[livesoft]

I was a fiduciary for the 401(k) of my employer's plan (I was on the 401(k) committee). We would get anonymized data of what our participants were invested in. This kind of stuff does not need to be reported on a 5500. For example, there were all the various kinds of investing in a 401(k) represented. Some examples:

1. 100% S&P500
2. 100% Money market fund
3. 100% Target fund
4. Various mixes

We could see which funds were used by very few employees, so those funds were always reviewed with the idea to remove them from the plan because removal would affect only a few employees.

For my spouse's employee, the owner's son ran the bulk of the 401(k) by market timing individual stocks. Scary. Many employees were 100% invested in the market timing option --- well until 2007-2009. I don't think this kind of thing is evident from a 5500.

[Rob Relyea]

I was a fiduciary for the 401(k) of my employer's plan (I was on the 401(k) committee). We would get anonymized data of what our participants were invested in. This kind of stuff does not need to be reported on a 5500. For example, there were all the various kinds of investing in a 401(k) represented. Some examples:

1. 100% S&P500
2. 100% Money market fund
3. 100% Target fund
4. Various mixes

We could see which funds were used by very few employees, so those funds were always reviewed with the idea to remove them from the plan because removal would affect only a few employees.

Interesting. I care most that people have good options, not what options they choose.

For my spouse's employee, the owner's son ran the bulk of the 401(k) by market timing individual stocks. Scary. Many employees were 100% invested in the market timing option --- well until 2007-2009. I don't think this kind of thing is evident from a 5500.

Scary. I would imagine that the details of investments for a 401k that show up on the 5500 form, would show of that is possible or not. Perhaps that company was small enough that they filed a 5500-sf which doesn’t need to show as many details?

[Rob Relyea]

back at it.
now creating files for each organization with per employee $250,000 in any of their plans. (just to pick a subset to work on for now...)
https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... yers/plans
[updated url: 11/20/2023]

will remove the per state files in the near future.
plan to keep iterating on the format per organization, evolving towards useful web presentation of the data.

[retired@50]

My question is whether a computer doing analysis of the fund choices listed in the 5500 form for every company would be helpful ammo/info in the campaign to improve 401(k) choices for more employees.

It might be helpful "ammo/info" but only if the affected plan participants understand anything about expense ratios. Further, the decision makers in the firm who selected the 401k plan options need to understand this as well.

Getting to this level of understanding in the general public seems a tall task.

Regards,

[Rob Relyea]

It might be helpful "ammo/info" but only if the affected plan participants understand anything about expense ratios. Further, the decision makers in the firm who selected the 401k plan options need to understand this as well.

Getting to this level of understanding in the general public seems a tall task.

Agree expense ratios are a key info point. Would love feedback (from you and others) as my presentation of this data evolves.

[Rob Relyea]

Decided to keep all plan data that I'm extracting from 5500 forms...including 401(k), 403(b), health, pension, etc...
In order to make that useful, now I'm marking each plan (based on 5500 data) which of those types of plans it is.

24 hours ago, Alaska airlines looked like this: https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... 009235.txt

Now, Alaska Airlines now better labels and sorts 401k, pension, healthcare plans: https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... 009235.txt

[Rob Relyea]

Starting to dig into each investment listed in each 401(k)/403(b)/pension/etc...
Each investment has an EIN number and a Plan number.
Looking up that EIN number and plan number, you can see the Vanguard/State Street/other fund details.

I now have the employer plans in this folder: https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... yers/plans
(For now, I'm still only including employer's in my output files if they have $250K per participant.)

Now, I've created a directory for "investment" plans in this folder: https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... nvestments
(i keep track of all EIN's that are referenced by plan investements. I include output for all EIN's that are referenced in this 'investments' folder)
 
Not quite the ticker I wanted, but happily I'm discovering more structure to this data than I originally thought.

[retired@50]

I now have the employer plans in this folder: https://github.com/bogle-tools/financia ... yers/plans
(For now, I'm still only including employer's in my output files if they have $250K per participant.)

Does this ^^^ mean the average participant, or that each participant must have $250k in the plan?

I'm not following.

Regards,

[Rob Relyea]

My program has found 221,046 unique EINs (Employer Identification Number) while searching through the 5500 form data from years 2017-2022.

I've chosen to work on a subset of those, for now.
The criteria I chose, was that at least one plan had to have $250k assets / participant (on average) in at least 1 year.

So if an 5500 filing, across any of those years, meets that criteria, then I output a text file with data about all of the plans from that EIN across those years.

If you are anxious to look at another employer that doesn't meet that criteria, reply with the employer name (or PM me) and I'll add it to the set of files generated.

[Rob Relyea]

Now showing all service providers for a plan, and the fees paid to them during the plan year.
Also showing service fees that were indirect

Example of Service Providers listing from Exxon Mobile data file:

Code: Select all

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION  135409005 -- TX : SPRING
  [401(k), Employee Stock Ownership Plan] EXXONMOBIL SAVINGS PLAN [135409005-334]
    2022  [codes: 2F2G2I2J2K2O3H3J2E3F]
        Participants: 38,501  Average: $552,349
        Assets: $21,266,000,000
        Service Providers:
           - NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION : $188,351  SERV.PROV. OF PLANSPONSOR (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan | Investment management fees paid indirectly by plan | Float revenue | 'Soft dollars' commissions | Direct payment from the plan)
           - VOYA INSTITUTIONAL PLAN SERVICES : $123,605  SERV.PROV.OF PLAN SPONSOR (Contract Administrator | Direct payment from the plan | Non - monetary compensation | Float revenue)
           - CITIGROUP GLOBAL MARKETS INC. : $47,669  SERV.PROV.OF PLAN SPONSOR (Securities brokerage | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
        Available Investments:
           - NORTHERN TRUST INVESTMENTS INC.
                 : NT AGGREGATE BOND INDEX FUND  [456138589-029] C  $960,000,000
                 : NT EXTENDED EQUITY MKT INDEX FUND  [456138589-052] C  $2,245,000,000
                 : NT GOVERNMENT STIF  [456138589-068] C  $134,000,000
                 : NT S&P 500 INDEX FUND  [456138589-001] C  $4,608,000,000
                 : NT WORLD EX-US INVEST MKT INDEX  [456138589-126] C  $1,500,000,000

Example of Service Fees with Soros Fund Management data file:
(don't fully understand the service fee correlation with the available investments...either a bug on my end...or I need to figure out how those fund names relate to this Plan better???)

Code: Select all

SOROS FUND MANAGEMENT LLC  133914976 -- NY : NEW YORK
  [401(k)] SOROS FUND MANAGEMENT LLC PROFIT SHARING PLAN [133914976-001]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2J2T3D]
        Participants: 436  Average: $226,342
        Assets: $98,685,479
        Service Providers:
           - NFP RETIREMENT INC : $36,000  INVESTMENT ADVISOR (Investment advisory(plan))
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : $29,088  RECORDKEEPER (Participant loan processing | Sub - transfer agency fees | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees)
        Service Fees:
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : AM CENT GOVT BD INV - AMERICAN CEN   $0 | 0.25%)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : AMER NEW PERSPECT R4 - AMERICAN FU   $0 | 0.35%)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : BAIRD CORE PLUS INST - US BANCORP   $0 | 0.02%)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : J H ENTERPRISE T - JANUS HENDERSON   $0 | 0.35%)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : TRP SM CAP STOCK ADV - T. ROWE PRI   $0 | 0.40%)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : VICTORY S SM CO OP I - FIS INVESTO   $0 | 0.10%)
        Available Investments:
           - WILMINGTON TRUST, N.A.
                 : LARGE CAP GRTH I1  [824435820-375] C  $9,056,271
           - WILMINGTON TRUST, N.A
                 : STABLE VALUE FUND I1  [854031707-653] C  $7,386,272

[Rob Relyea]

Now showing total for Service Provider fees, plus a "per participant" amount.

Example from Kimberly-Clark Corporation data file ($229 per participant):

Code: Select all

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION  390394230 -- WI : NEENAH
  [401(k), Employee Stock Ownership Plan] KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION 401(K) & PROFIT SHARING PLAN [390394230-016]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2J2K2O2R2S2T3H]
        Participants: 17,336  Average: $229,516
        Assets: $3,978,902,000
        Service Providers:
           - STRATEGIC ADVISORS : $2,174,850  INV. ADVISORY (Investment advisory(participants) | Other investment fees and expenses)
           - BLACKROCK INSTITUTIONAL TRUST CO,NA : $906,968  INV. MANAGER (Trustee(bank, trust company, or similar) | Trustee(discretionary) | Investment management | Direct payment from the plan | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - FID INV INST OPS CO : $595,388  RECORDKEEPER (Recordkeeper | Participant loan processing | Direct payment from the plan | Sub - transfer agency fees | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
           - NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION : $109,333  TRUSTEE (Trustee(bank, trust company, or similar) | Direct payment from the plan)
           - HEWITT FINANCIAL SERVICES LLC : $86,250  BROKER (Securities brokerage | Finders' fees/placement fees | Distribution(12b - 1) fees)
           - BDO USA, LLP : $79,500  ACCOUNTANT (Accounting(including auditing) | Direct payment from the plan)
           - CURCIO WEBB : $18,496  CONSULTANT (Consulting(general) | Direct payment from the plan)
           - PRINTEDGE : $6,034  COMMUNICATIONS (Participant communication | Direct payment from the plan)
           = TOTAL FEES: $3,976,819 (or $229 per partipant)
        Service Fees:
           - FID INV INST OPS CO : MULTIPLE MUTUAL FUND COMPANIES   $60560 | SUB-TRANSFER AGENCY FEES SEE ATTACHMENT TO LINE 2(H) FOR FORMULAS)
           - NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION : MULTIPLE BROKERS   $32344 | BROKER COMMISSIONS)
        Available Investments:
           - AMERIPRISE TRUST COMPANY
                 : CT MONEY MARKET FUND Z  [410007957-057] C  $100,842,000
                 : INCOME FUND Z  [410007957-055] C  $213,700,000
                 : MONEY MARKET FUND Z  [410007957-054] C  $25,580,000
                 : STABLE GOVERNMENT FUND Z  [410007957-056] C  $80,961,000
           - BLACKROCK INSTITUTIONAL TRUST CO
                 : BLACKROCK MSCI ACWI EX-US IMI IND  [274955447-001] C  $421,852,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2025 FUND F  [205115920-001] C  $94,298,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2030 FUND F  [710986424-001] C  $47,807,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2035 FUND F  [205114956-001] C  $108,155,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2040 FUND F  [710986419-001] C  $43,927,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2045 FUND F  [205115008-001] C  $82,711,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2050 FUND F  [260896020-001] C  $33,489,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2055 FUND F  [272470604-001] C  $32,185,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2060 FUND F  [471878775-001] C  $12,349,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX 2065 FUND F  [841770109-001] C  $2,220,000
                 : LIFEPATH INDEX RETIREMENT FUND F  [710986421-001] C  $61,991,000
                 : RUSSELL 1000 GROWTH FUND F  [943330725-001] C  $501,355,000
                 : RUSSELL 1000 INDEX FUND F  [943357216-001] C  $509,819,000
                 : RUSSELL 1000 VALUE FUND F  [943330726-001] C  $366,152,000
                 : RUSSELL 2000 INDEX FUND F  [943318704-001] C  $212,884,000
                 : US DEBT INDEX FUND F  [943291425-001] C  $440,410,000
           - NORTHERN TRUST INVESTMENTS, INC.
                 : NT COLLECTIVE GOVERNMENT ST INVEST  [456138589-068] C  $5,101,000

[Lyrrad]

Now showing total for Service Provider fees, plus a "per participant" amount.

Example from Kimberly-Clark Corporation data file ($229 per participant):

[...]

I'm not sure how useful the "per participant" fees is in determining how good a plan is.

For my large employer, the indirect compensation listing (from Part I. 2) works out to several dozen dollars per employee, but many of those costs seem to be from of the expense ratios of the trusts in the plan or other services paid by the employer.

While my employer's Form 5500 does list a lot of these costs and the amount in each fund option, it doesn't seem to be possible to figure out the actual cost to the participant, such as the actual expense ratios of the funds themselves and the annual fees. I'm guessing that information does not need to be disclosed publicly.

---

I do find all this information pretty interesting though. There have been other web sites that try to aggregate Form 5500 information, but it's nice that your information is all freely available. It can be useful to look at growth of assets and participants in the plan over time.

[Rob Relyea]

I'm not sure how useful the "per participant" fees is in determining how good a plan is.

For my large employer, the indirect compensation listing (from Part I. 2) works out to several dozen dollars per employee, but many of those costs seem to be from of the expense ratios of the trusts in the plan or other services paid by the employer.

While my employer's Form 5500 does list a lot of these costs and the amount in each fund option, it doesn't seem to be possible to figure out the actual cost to the participant, such as the actual expense ratios of the funds themselves and the annual fees. I'm guessing that information does not need to be disclosed publicly.

Yes, not sure the best way to total or represent the 401k fees yet...still experimenting.
I imagine that the sum of all of those fees is coming from the plan, meaning from the employees...

I remembered FrugalProfessors earlier comment on this thread where he discussed $/year per head:

It's also easy to Google each plan's recordkeeping fee structure. The best practice is $/year, rather than % of assets. With enough negotiating clout, you can get the annual recordkeeping fee < $30/year per head. Fidelity currently charges me $29/yr (total) to recordkeep my 7-figure 401a, 457, and 403b.

As for expense ratios...I'm still surprised that the Department of Labor doesn't require that data to be easier to find. I'd like to spend energy to help make that easier...it is a key factoid!

I do find all this information pretty interesting though. There have been other web sites that try to aggregate Form 5500 information, but it's nice that your information is all freely available. It can be useful to look at growth of assets and participants in the plan over time.

Glad to hear what is interesting to see...or what else you would like to see...still in exploration stage.

[Rob Relyea]

Added the full download link to the 5500 forms from the output data...to make it easier to check the original source.

Example from Delta Air Lines data file...

Code: Select all

DELTA AIR LINES, INC.  580218548 -- GA : ATLANTA
  [401(k)] DELTA 401(K) RETIREMENT PLAN [580218548-004]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2J2K2R2S2T3F3H]    https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazonaws.com/prd/2023/10/16/20231016135315NAL0025736963001.pdf
        Participants: 106,779  Average: $124,021
        Assets: $13,242,875,281
        Service Providers:
           - FINANCIAL ENGINES : $7,554,395  ADVISOR (Investment advisory(plan) | Direct payment from the plan)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : $2,582,238  RECORDKEEPER (Recordkeeper | Participant loan processing | Direct payment from the plan | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
           - BDO USA, P.C. : $7,250  ACCOUNTANT/AUDITOR (Accounting(including auditing) | Direct payment from the plan)
           = TOTAL FEES: $10,143,883 (or $94 per partipant)
        Service Fees:
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL :    $0 | SEE ATTACHED)
        Available Investments:
           - DELTA AIR LINES, INC.
                 : DAL, INC. DC PLANS MASTER TRUST  [416766712-013] M  $12,939,307,488
    2021    https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazonaws.com/prd/2022/10/17/20221017165957NAL0030676465001.pdf
        Participants: 98,400  Average: $159,617
        Assets: $15,706,343,899
        Service Providers:
           - FINANCIAL ENGINES : $7,653,565  ADVISOR (Investment advisory(plan))
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : $2,081,578  RECORDKEEPER (Participant loan processing | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
           - FRAZIER & DEETER : $27,950  AUDITOR (Accounting(including auditing))
           = TOTAL FEES: $9,763,093 (or $99 per partipant)
        Available Investments:
           - DELTA AIR LINES, INC.
                 : DAL, INC. DC PLANS MASTER TRUST  [416766712-013] M  $15,429,284,380

[FrugalProfessor]

I like where you're it's going!

Here's what you have for MSFT's most recent filing:

Code: Select all

MICROSOFT CORPORATION  911144442 -- WA : REDMOND
  [401(k), Employee Stock Ownership Plan] MICROSOFT CORPORATION SAVINGS PLUS 401K PLAN [911144442-001]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2I2J2K2O2R2T3H]    https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazonaws.com/prd/2023/7/27/20230727112514NAL0015201904001.pdf
        Participants: 173,630  Average: $228,086
        Assets: $39,602,667,639
        Service Providers:
           - ARTISAN PARTNERS LIMITED PARTNERSHI : $9,977,726   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - DIMENSIONAL FUND ADVISORS : $1,127,620   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : $920,640   (Participant loan processing | Securities brokerage commissions and fees | Recordkeeping fees | Investment management fees paid directly by plan | Account maintenance fees)
           - PIMCO : $2,484,732   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - RUSSELL INVESTMENTS : $10,402,223   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - STRATEGIC ADVISORS, INC. : $3,849,225   (Investment advisory(plan) | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           = TOTAL FEES: $28,762,166 (or $165 per partipant)
        Available Investments:
           - BLACKROCK INSTITUTIONAL TRUST COMPANY, N.A.
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2025 FUND F  [205114920-001] C  $126,814,045
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2025 FUND N  [821483157-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2030 FUND F  [710986424-001] C  $1,699,484,388
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2030 FUND N  [821498398-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2035 FUND F  [205114956-001] C  $335,616,329
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2035 FUND N  [821513534-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2040 FUND F  [710986419-001] C  $2,999,777,309
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2040 FUND N  [821532549-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2045 FUND F  [205115008-001] C  $523,917,442
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2045 FUND N  [821546505-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2050 FUND F  [260896020-001] C  $3,094,938,038
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2050 FUND N  [821562543-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2055 FUND F  [272470604-001] C  $647,126,798
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2055 FUND N  [821578259-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2060 FUND F  [471878775-001] C  $1,037,681,805
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2060 FUND N  [821592041-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2065 FUND F  [841770109-001] C  $141,067,635
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2065 FUND N  [841845096-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX RETIREMENT FD F  [710986421-001] C  $539,445,613
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX RETIREMENT FD N  [821458076-001] C  $0
                 : SHORT-TERM INVESTMENT FUND  [946450621-001] C  $931,827,274
           - FIDELITY MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY
                 : FIDELITY CONTRAFUND COMMINGLED POOL  [043022712-133] C  $1,871,018,466
                 : FIDELITY GROWTH CO. COMMINGLED POOL  [043022712-135] C  $3,527,299,452
           - GEODE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY, LLC
                 : SPARTAN SMALL- MID CAP VALUE INDEX  [826293122-015] C  $226,357,036
           - VANGUARD FIDUCIARY TRUST COMPANY
                 : VANGUARD EMPLOYEE BENEFIT INDEX FD  [233080210-001] C  $4,955,635,474
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 1000 GR INDEX TR  [226932947-001] C  $1,789,480,212
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 1000 VAL INDEX TR  [226932951-001] C  $1,524,972,041
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 2000 GR INDEX TR  [226932966-001] C  $1,139,366,432
           - WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.
                 : WELLS FARGO STABLE VALUE FUND C  [522250946-001] C  $0

Looking at MSFT's 5500 most recent filing (https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazon ... 904001.pdf), it's evident that your query is not yet capturing the richness of the underlying reporting. This is obviously the 5500's fault, not yours. There isn't a standardized way to report this information, and it is surely inefficient to scrap the text from archaic, non-standardized PDFs to retrieve asset holdings.

For example, page 87/133 of MSFT's 2022 5500 form, you can see the following information not yet captured in your report:
* $2.45B (6.2% of plan assets) in BrokerageLink, which opens up Pandora's box of investment options to investors. 
* $3.27B (8.2% of plan assets) in MSFT stock. Most financial advisors would advise against this for obvious reasons (e.g. Enron), but MSFT employees would have done well ignoring this financial advice lately.
* $11.15B (28.1% of plan assets) in Target Date Funds (TDFs). This strikes me as lower than other plans I've looked at.
* MSFT is wisely leveraging their economies of scale through the investment in super-low-cost collective investment trusts (CITs).

Nonetheless, if I had a wish list, it would be to construct a dataset capable of answering the following questions:
* What is the % of assets in: TDFs, BrokerageLink (or equivalent) a.k.a. the "brokerage window", own-company stock, equities, fixed income, alternatives (e.g. REITs)?
* Counting TDFs as 1, what is the # of fund options? How many domestic equity options? Int'l equity options? Fixed income options? Alternatives (e.g. REITs)? You'd be amazed at how a seemingly innocuous decision of how many funds to offer will have tangible effects on asset allocations. For example, when looking at 5500 data a year or two back I saw a dramatic difference in international equity exposure when the # of int'l funds as a percentage of total equity funds was higher (e.g. total US stock fund + emerging markets stock fund + developed int'l markets fund + total int'l stock fund). I found the converse when the splitting of funds was reversed (total US stock fund, S&P index, mid cap index, small cap index, US value index, US growth index, total int'l stock fund). It's amazing how big of a difference in outcomes can be driven by seemingly insignificant menu construction decisions of employer. This is consistent with the presence of "naive 1/N" investors that Thaler and others have noted.
* What are the aggregate asset-management fees (e.g. expense ratios) of the underlying funds across the plan options? In % of assets? $/head?
* In percentage terms, what was the realized return of the plan over the past month (proxied by current allocation * trailing 12-mo returns)? Does this return correlate to fund fees (e.g. Bogle's "costs matter" hypothesis)?

Part of my dissertation looked at the investing behavior of thousands of employees at a large state government DC plan. The conclusion was that most employees never change anything (perhaps a finding that is remotely interesting/surprising to an academic). Us Bogleheads are definitely the anomaly in caring about this stuff and acting on it. Most people stick with defaults and perhaps never transact. The most interesting example in my study was when the employer transitioned from having the "default" asset allocation change from money market funds to TDFs. When comparing two cohorts hired a month apart from each other, if you tracked their equity exposure 10+ years after hiring, the TDF "default" cohort had something like 50% more equity exposure than the money market "default" cohort, with predictably higher account balances given the bull market in my sample. All because of the arbitrary plan design of their employer combined with the human nature. If you extrapolate this example across all people in the economy, it is really amazing. Poorly designed plans are costing employees gazillions of dollars, while simultaneously lining the pockets of mutual fund managers, recordkeepers, and retirement plan consultants. This wealth transfer from the uninformed to financial institutions makes me pretty angry when I think about it.... It is really too bad that the general public doesn't have access to a well-governed government-managed DC plan (like the TSP), but we instead have to rely on poorly constructed plans managed by uninformed administrators with the "help" of self-serving consultants + recordkeepers + fund managers. And our 401k money is held hostage at our company's 401k plan because it is not portable (until we leave) and we can't get the tax benefits outside of the plan (in excess of IRAs, of course). It's truly a bizarre system with so much duplication of effort and very poor outcomes, on average.

[nyejos11]

"It is really too bad that the general public doesn't have access to a well-governed government-managed DC plan (like the TSP), but we instead have to rely on poorly constructed plans managed by uninformed administrators with the "help" of self-serving consultants + recordkeepers + fund managers. And our 401k money is held hostage at our company's 401k plan because it is not portable (until we leave) and we can't get the tax benefits outside of the plan (in excess of IRAs, of course). It's truly a bizarre system with so much duplication of effort and very poor outcomes, on average."

This is where Im at with my 401k. High fees, 12b-1 fees, secret "hidden " fees. No wonder I can't seem to save up enough money for retirement. When they designed the 401k, its like they gave these companies a license to be bloodsuckers. If I just stop contributing to my 401k the balance will get smaller and smaller until I retire due to the fees they are taking out each year. It seems the only solution is to change jobs to one with a better 401k. A case of the tail wagging the dog. I am powerless, the only thing I could do is try to persuade my company management to change 401K providers. What is a guy to do?

It should be ILLEGAL for companies to not allow you to do in-service rollovers as long as the funds are going into a qualifying plan. You should be able to put your money where you want, after all it is your money.

[Rob Relyea]

* $11.15B (28.1% of plan assets) in Target Date Funds (TDFs). This strikes me as lower than other plans I've looked at.

Thanks. my data does list those target date funds and knows their year end balance (scroll to the right to see)

Will dig into the other ideas later…

[Lyrrad]

Glad to hear what is interesting to see...or what else you would like to see...still in exploration stage.

Some ideas. Not sure how accessible this information is, since I've only really looked at my employer's Form 5500 in detail.

• Growth of active participants over time and average contributions per employee
• Employer contributions per active participant
• Outstanding loans over time
• Proportion of assets in target retirement plans over time. My employer moved to these as the default option some time ago, so the proportion of total assets in these has increased over time.
• If a public company, the proportion of US employees that are active participants in the plan. (Number of employees might be available from SEC filings.)
• Proportion of assets in self-directed brokerage accounts.

Some things that I don't think are available from my employer's Form 5500:

• Expense ratios of non-public funds
• Fees paid by participants or employers
• Employer contribution match/vesting policy
• Mean/Median total compensation of participants
• Policies around loans and/or hardship distributions
• Whether the plan failed any non-discrimination tests
• Assets in Pre-tax, Roth, and/or After-tax and whether or not mega-backdoor contributions or conversions are allowed
• Whether in service distributions of non-elective non-employer contributions are allowed.
• Whether partial distributions are allowed after separation of service.
• Whether loan payments are allowed after separation of service, or whether the entire loan is due.

[Rob Relyea]

Glad to hear what is interesting to see...or what else you would like to see...still in exploration stage.

Some ideas. Not sure how accessible this information is, since I've only really looked at my employer's Form 5500 in detail.

• Growth of active participants over time and average contributions per employee
• Employer contributions per active participant
• Outstanding loans over time
• Proportion of assets in target retirement plans over time. My employer moved to these as the default option some time ago, so the proportion of total assets in these has increased over time.
• If a public company, the proportion of US employees that are active participants in the plan. (Number of employees might be available from SEC filings.)
• Proportion of assets in self-directed brokerage accounts.

Some things that I don't think are available from my employer's Form 5500:

• Expense ratios of non-public funds
• Fees paid by participants or employers
• Employer contribution match/vesting policy
• Mean/Median total compensation of participants
• Policies around loans and/or hardship distributions
• Whether the plan failed any non-discrimination tests
• Assets in Pre-tax, Roth, and/or After-tax and whether or not mega-backdoor contributions or conversions are allowed
• Whether in service distributions of non-elective non-employer contributions are allowed.
• Whether partial distributions are allowed after separation of service.
• Whether loan payments are allowed after separation of service, or whether the entire loan is due.

appreciate the great wish list!

[Rob Relyea]

Now showing a subtotal of itemized investments.
And showing "other" investments which is total assets - subtotal of itemized investments.

In the Microsoft Corporation data file, 27.1B itemized investments + 12.5B other = 39.6B total assets

Not sure yet where all of that 12.5B goes...likely 5.7B of it is BrokerageLink and MSFT stock as per this quote:

For example, page 87/133 of MSFT's 2022 5500 form, you can see the following information not yet captured in your report:
* $2.45B (6.2% of plan assets) in BrokerageLink, which opens up Pandora's box of investment options to investors.
* $3.27B (8.2% of plan assets) in MSFT stock. Most financial advisors would advise against this for obvious reasons (e.g. Enron), but MSFT employees would have done well ignoring this financial advice lately.
* $11.15B (28.1% of plan assets) in Target Date Funds (TDFs). This strikes me as lower than other plans I've looked at.
* MSFT is wisely leveraging their economies of scale through the investment in super-low-cost collective investment trusts (CITs).

Code: Select all

MICROSOFT CORPORATION  911144442 -- WA : REDMOND
  [401(k), Employee Stock Ownership Plan] MICROSOFT CORPORATION SAVINGS PLUS 401K PLAN [911144442-001]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2I2J2K2O2R2T3H]    https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazonaws.com/prd/2023/7/27/20230727112514NAL0015201904001.pdf
        Participants: 173,630  Average: $228,086
        Assets: $39,602,667,639
        Service Providers:
           - ARTISAN PARTNERS LIMITED PARTNERSHI : $9,977,726   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - DIMENSIONAL FUND ADVISORS : $1,127,620   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : $920,640   (Participant loan processing | Securities brokerage commissions and fees | Recordkeeping fees | Investment management fees paid directly by plan | Account maintenance fees)
           - PIMCO : $2,484,732   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - RUSSELL INVESTMENTS : $10,402,223   (Investment management | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           - STRATEGIC ADVISORS, INC. : $3,849,225   (Investment advisory(plan) | Investment management fees paid directly by plan)
           = TOTAL FEES: $28,762,166 (or $165 per partipant)
        Available Investments:
           - BLACKROCK INSTITUTIONAL TRUST COMPANY, N.A.
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2025 FUND F  [205114920-001] C  $126,814,045
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2025 FUND N  [821483157-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2030 FUND F  [710986424-001] C  $1,699,484,388
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2030 FUND N  [821498398-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2035 FUND F  [205114956-001] C  $335,616,329
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2035 FUND N  [821513534-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2040 FUND F  [710986419-001] C  $2,999,777,309
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2040 FUND N  [821532549-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2045 FUND F  [205115008-001] C  $523,917,442
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2045 FUND N  [821546505-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2050 FUND F  [260896020-001] C  $3,094,938,038
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2050 FUND N  [821562543-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2055 FUND F  [272470604-001] C  $647,126,798
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2055 FUND N  [821578259-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2060 FUND F  [471878775-001] C  $1,037,681,805
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2060 FUND N  [821592041-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2065 FUND F  [841770109-001] C  $141,067,635
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX 2065 FUND N  [841845096-001] C  $0
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX RETIREMENT FD F  [710986421-001] C  $539,445,613
                 : BLK LIFEPATH INDEX RETIREMENT FD N  [821458076-001] C  $0
                 : SHORT-TERM INVESTMENT FUND  [946450621-001] C  $931,827,274
           - FIDELITY MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY
                 : FIDELITY CONTRAFUND COMMINGLED POOL  [043022712-133] C  $1,871,018,466
                 : FIDELITY GROWTH CO. COMMINGLED POOL  [043022712-135] C  $3,527,299,452
           - GEODE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY, LLC
                 : SPARTAN SMALL- MID CAP VALUE INDEX  [826293122-015] C  $226,357,036
           - VANGUARD FIDUCIARY TRUST COMPANY
                 : VANGUARD EMPLOYEE BENEFIT INDEX FD  [233080210-001] C  $4,955,635,474
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 1000 GR INDEX TR  [226932947-001] C  $1,789,480,212
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 1000 VAL INDEX TR  [226932951-001] C  $1,524,972,041
                 : VANGUARD RUSSELL 2000 GR INDEX TR  [226932966-001] C  $1,139,366,432
           - WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.
                 : WELLS FARGO STABLE VALUE FUND C  [522250946-001] C  $0
           = SUBTOTAL $ 27,111,825,789
           = OTHER    $ 12,490,841,850

[Rob Relyea]

- Growth of active participants over time and average contributions per employee
- Employer contributions per active participant

These 3 data points are now in the output files...under Participants and Contributions sections.

Intel Corporation data file example:

Code: Select all

INTEL CORPORATION  941672743 -- CA : FOLSOM
  [401(k), Employee Stock Ownership Plan] INTEL 401(K) SAVINGS PLAN [941672743-003]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2J2O2R2S2T3F3H2K]    https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazonaws.com/prd/2023/8/30/20230830165839NAL0009280480001.pdf
        Participants: 85,013  Average: $215,985
        Assets: $18,361,585,903
        Contributions - employee: $  13,710 per participant
                      - employer: $   5,428 per participant
        Service Providers:
           - FIDELITY INVEST INST OPS CO : $196,331  RECORDKEEPER (Participant loan processing | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
           = TOTAL FEES: $196,331 (or $2 per partipant)
        Available Investments:
           - BLACKROCK INSTITUTIONAL TRUST COMPANY
                 : BLACKROCK EQUITY INDEX FUND F  [943262720-001] C  $2,431,754,616
                 : BLACKROCK MSCI ACWI EX US IMI INDEX  [274955447-001] C  $250,921,960
                 : BLACKROCK RUSSELL 2500 FUND F  [800254284-001] C  $777,703,049
                 : BLACKROCK TOTAL RETURN BOND FUND  [471222253-001] C  $19,017,720
                 : BLACKROCK U.S. DEBT FUND F  [943291425-001] C  $454,479,631
           - CAPITAL BANK AND TRUST
                 : CAPITAL GROUP EUROPACIFIC GROWTH TR  [956597294-661] C  $299,601,467
           - FIDELITY MANAGEMENT TRUST CO
                 : FIDELITY GROWTH COMMINGLED POOL  [043022712-135] C  $1,949,991,876
                 : FIDELITY LOW-PRICED STOCK COMMINGLE  [043022712-132] C  $554,955,820
           - GLOBAL TRUST COMPANY
                 : INTEL GLOBAL DIVERSIFIED FUND  [376650368-012] C  $83,698,744
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2015 FUND  [376650368-016] C  $135,279,490
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2020 FUND  [376650368-017] C  $424,893,336
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2025 FUND  [376650368-018] C  $1,113,174,811
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2030 FUND  [376650368-019] C  $1,277,100,543
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2035 FUND  [376650368-020] C  $1,540,070,447
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2040 FUND  [376650368-021] C  $936,938,850
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2045 FUND  [376650368-022] C  $837,467,927
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2050 FUND  [376650368-023] C  $555,861,471
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2055 FUND  [376650368-024] C  $290,377,518
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE 2060  [376650368-025] C  $53,764,712
                 : INTEL TARGET DATE INCOME FUND  [376650368-013] C  $92,073,835
           - GLOBAL TRUST FUND
                 : INTEL STABLE VALUE FUND  [376650368-010] C  $1,086,897,061
           = SUBTOTAL $ 15,166,024,884
           = OTHER    $  3,195,561,019
           

[Rob Relyea]

Added details on Loans ... and also Employer Stock amount and the Business Code (industry).

- Outstanding loans over time

Example from United States Steel Corporation data file:

Code: Select all

UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION AND AFFILIATED COS.  251897152 -- BusinessCode: 331110 -- PA : PITTSBURGH
  [401(k)] UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION SAVINGS FUND PLAN FOR SALARIED EMPLOYEES [251897152-003]
    2022  [codes: 2E2F2G2J2K2S2T3F]    https://efast2-filings-public.s3.amazonaws.com/prd/2023/6/27/20230627173726NAL0005064081001.pdf
        Participants: 5,788  Average: $230,791
        Assets: $1,335,820,054
        Contributions - employee: $   4,772 per participant
                      - employer: $   5,956 per participant
        Loans                   : $   1,554 per participant
        Service Providers:
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : $261,171  RECORDKEEPER (Participant loan processing | Recordkeeping fees | Account maintenance fees | Securities brokerage commissions and fees)
           - STRATEGIC ADVISORS, INC. : $161,219  ADVISOR (Investment advisory(plan))
           - NEPC, LLC : $104,921  CONSULTANT (Consulting(general))
           = TOTAL FEES: $527,311 (or $91 per partipant)
        Service Fees:
           - FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL : TRP EMG MKT STOCK-T ROWE PRICE SVCS   $0 | ANNUALIZED @ 0.15%)
        Available Investments:
           - FIAM GROUP TRUST FOR EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2005 COM  [204659714-075] C  $2,649,777
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2010 COM  [204659714-076] C  $4,681,135
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2015 COM  [204659714-077] C  $7,040,984
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2020 COM  [204659714-078] C  $16,497,452
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2025 COM  [204659714-079] C  $31,960,711
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2030 COM  [204659714-080] C  $52,673,810
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2035 COM  [204659714-081] C  $50,734,508
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2040 COM  [204659714-082] C  $37,009,189
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2045 COM  [204659714-083] C  $34,509,905
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2050 COM  [204659714-084] C  $31,912,267
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2055 COM  [204659714-112] C  $18,446,768
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2060 COM  [204659714-146] C  $4,714,562
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE 2065 COM  [204659714-169] C  $646,191
                 : FIDELITY INDEX TARGET DATE INCOME  [204659714-074] C  $4,735,813
           - FIDELITY MANAGEMENT TRUST COMPANY
                 : FIDELITY CONTRAFUND COMMINGLED POOL  [043022712-133] C  $104,073,857
                 : FIDELITY DIVERSIFIED INTERNATIONAL  [043022712-134] C  $37,493,286
                 : FIDELITY LOW-PRICED STOCK POOL  [043022712-132] C  $19,553,253
                 : FIDELITY MANAGED INCOME PORTFOLIO  [043022712-025] C  $192,735,960
           - STATE STREET GLOBAL ADVISORS TRUST COMPANY
                 : STATE STREET GLOBAL ALL CAP EQUITY  [900337987-444] C  $7,520,995
                 : STATE STREET RUSSELL SMALL/MID CAP  [326528132-019] C  $2,812,616
                 : STATE STREET S&P 500 INDEX SECURITI  [040025081-078] C  $191,491,846
                 : STATE STREET U.S. BOND INDEX SECURI  [900337987-477] C  $55,918,045
                 : STATE STREET U.S. INFLATION PROTECT  [326528132-037] C  $17,866,401
           = SUBTOTAL       $    927,679,331
           = EMPLOYER STOCK $    156,897,257
           = OTHER          $    251,243,466