new 401k plan

[jIMOh]

My company was bought out last month by a larger fish (Siemens). The old 401k was Vanguard top to bottom, with one Royce fund.

The new 401k has nameless funds. Anyone else have nameless funds in their 401k? What is performance like for nameless funds/ tickerless funds?

I tried posting the descriptions, but website does not like 71 kb word files. Here is a sample:

U.S. Large
Cap Stock

Approximately 10% of this option is held in an S&P 500 Index portfolio, with the remainder invested in one or
more widely diversified portfolios, each holding stock issued primarily by large and medium-size U.S. companies.
Objective and benchmark: Seeks long-term capital growth while generating returns that exceed the
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

 

[teejayevans]

My company was bought out last month by a larger fish (Siemens). The old 401k was Vanguard top to bottom, with one Royce fund.

The new 401k has nameless funds. Anyone else have nameless funds in their 401k? What is performance like for nameless funds/ tickerless funds?

My megacorp does that as well, but in the fine print they list the
fund manager (VG, etc), and the funds can be mapped to an existing fund.

I'm guessing that because of ERISA laws, the funds for large employer
sponsored 401Ks have to be accounted for separately.
TJ

 

[FinanceDude]

My company was bought out last month by a larger fish (Siemens). The old 401k was Vanguard top to bottom, with one Royce fund.

The new 401k has nameless funds. Anyone else have nameless funds in their 401k? What is performance like for nameless funds/ tickerless funds?

I tried posting the descriptions, but website does not like 71 kb word files. Here is a sample:

U.S. Large
Cap Stock

Approximately 10% of this option is held in an S&P 500 Index portfolio, with the remainder invested in one or
more widely diversified portfolios, each holding stock issued primarily by large and medium-size U.S. companies.
Objective and benchmark: Seeks long-term capital growth while generating returns that exceed the
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Look closely, maybe it's a SUBACCOUNT of a variable annuity as an investment option.........

 

[saluki9]

Look closely, maybe it's a SUBACCOUNT of a variable annuity as an investment option.........

With Siemens as the parent? Not likely

 

[Tadpole]

Objective and benchmark: Seeks long-term capital growth while generating returns that exceed the
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Who pays the fees? That sounds like a managed fund to me. That's fine if your own fees are not high and the managers are good at achieving that goal. (It strikes me that, unless this does map to an existing fund at Vanguard or one of the others, you don't have historic returns to use for comparison to the old plan.)

 

[dbr]

Not Uncommon

It is certainly common for large companies to have institutional funds that are not avaialble to the retail market and do not have ticker symbols.

Your company should (by law must) provide you with performance and fee data for these funds. Morningstar often is a provider of such fund profiles that can only be accessed by employees enrolled in the plan.

In a good plan funds like these may have very low ER's and very low administative costs, said costs likely paid by the employer.

What is missing is that you need to see the Summary Plan Description and the Plan Annual Report. If the plan administrator is up to speed there should be on-line support for fund descriptions. Maybe the problem is that the plan information has not been promulgated to the newly absorbed employees effectively.

 

[ats5g]

Curteosy of the OP, here's a link to the Siemen's 401(k) options:

SiemensSavingsPlanBrochure

The expense ratios are nowhere to be found.

- Alec

 

[teejayevans]

Curteosy of the OP, here's a link to the Siemen's 401(k) options:

SiemensSavingsPlanBrochure

The expense ratios are nowhere to be found.

- Alec

Yea, its a bit light, my 401k plan that is also administrated by Hewitt, has
more info. Did you try logging into Hewitt to see if there is more info?
They do mention a SDB account where you would have full access to any
index funds (I didn't read the particulars), also mentions the "legal plan
documents" that should be made available, probably on your inTRAnet
HR site.
TJ

 

[dbr]

Plan Info

My 401K is also administered by Hewitt. The web site is even the same as yours with different company name. On my account page I can access fund descriptions from Morningstar that are very complete, give ER's, give historical performance, etc., etc. These Morningstar blurbs would not be available to the public if the funds are not retail. The actual investment house handling the fund is listed -- Barclay's, State Street Global Advisors, etc., etc. seem to be Hewitt favorites.

Have you looked there yet? I have found Hewitt to be an excellent administrator and their web access to be well designed.

 

[jblack]

I've recently come across an issue with this. I was trying to do some decent end of year asset allocation analysis of all my and DW's investments via Vanguard's website but was unable to pull in the exact funds that are in my 401k (Megacorp sponsored, managed by Hewitt).

Does anyone else have an issue with this or know of how to easily adjust for? I can find the retail versions of the funds but they are managed spearately and have different NAVs / prices. So when I enter the number of shares Hewitt shows I own with these retail versions it produces values that, in aggregate, make my 401k balance ~3x bigger.

All I really want to do is for Vanguard to take all my stuff and spit out the net asset allocation tables & pie charts.

Any ideas?

 

[megacorp-firee]

My megacorp 401k funds are administered by Hewitt also. I believe they are separate funds set up for our company. Here is the explaination of the Total Stock Market Index fund:

The Total Stock Market Index Fund seeks long-term growth of capital and income. It attempts to match the investment results of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000​

​

® Total Market Index, which covers all regularly traded U.S. stocks. The fund invests in a large sampling of
stocks that match certain characteristics of the index. Though the fund seeks to match the
index, its performance typically can be expected to fall short by a small percentage, representing operating costs.

Other of their 'index' funds also track similiar publicly 'familiar' funds.

The 'fees' are really low, some as low as $0.05 per $100​

 

[jblack]

My megacorp 401k funds are administered by Hewitt also. I believe they are separate funds set up for our company.

This is my concern. Some of mine look very much like their retail version but no ticker is given on the Hewitt site. For example, our "Balanced Fund" option is managed by Dodge & Cox, but ticker is not DODBX. I can tell this b/c Hewitt tells me I own X number of shares/units and this doesn't translate to the same value as I would have using DODBX.

In doing asset allocation review using Vanguard, TRowePrice, MorningStar, etc tools should I just use the retail version and input the total dollars I have invested instead of the # shares? My assumption is that they're the same underlying fund but just tracked separately b/c of the institutional nature of megacorp's 401k.

?

 

[dbr]

My 401K administered by Hewitt provides a participant web page which has links to descriptions of the funds which include description, ER's, yield, performance, etc. Actually the links are Morningstar reports that look just like the one's you would see at Morningstar.com but there are no ticker symbols and the data could not be accessed publically. The fund company managing these funds in this case is State Street Global Advisors. There is no annuity shenanigans going on. ER's and total fees are significantly lower than Vanguard, and for participants that still can't find enough there is a directed brokerage option at Schwab.

Since there are no ticker symbols, tools like x-ray are useless and there are not equivalent funds. (Well one S&P index performs much like another except fees, but the numbers will not jibe.) I write all my portfolio summary calculations in Excel and do not attempt to use on-line portfolio tools. The 401K funds are not the only investments I own that are not accounted for in online tools the way I would like them to be.

Again, there has to be a Summary Plan Description and Annual Reports that document the funds. This is required by law. Your employer's fee structure for the plan can be found in the Federal Form 5500, which can be downloaded at freeerisa.com. It is not surprising that there are "brochures" that are not very complete.

Thank you.

 

[Animorph]

My DW's 401k is also at Hewitt with nameless funds. I use a similar retail fund by the same fund advisors (some funds list two advisors, which might make this difficult) to track the current value. That works pretty well. Currently I'm doing that with a Julius Baer international fund, which has definitely been doing well for us and tracks closely with JIEIX.

In addition to using non-retail funds they may be adding expenses to your funds. Certainly that was true with our company stock funds, which constantly shrunk the number of equivalent shares. I have had 401k funds that say they are essentially the same as a retail fund (and even gave the symbol) but will not track the NAV due to expense differences.

Dan

 

[Delawaredave5]

Interesting thread. My Megacorp just "revamped" our 401 K - where we went from a bunch of "retail" funds from Janus, Fidelity, ML (sometimes different classes) to a new set of choices that looks very much like the Siemens options. Our plan is administered by Merrill Lynch.

The stock funds are pools of money where multiple private money managers have been hired to run portions of this private pool of money. There's very little information on the fees, objectives - and, since new, no history of performance.

Why do these Megacorps force us into these privately managed pools ?

I thought Megacorps have been encouraging "individual responsibility" to manage our own retirements - the best way to Megacorps to "limit / reduce" their involvement is to promote open / public stock fund choices - right ?

The "suspicious" side of me thinks Megacorps are concerned about their "fiduciary liability" - and by restricting stock fund choices to large "plain-vanilla" closed funds - they reduce their liability exposure (so no employees can put 100% of their money in a high-risk high-tech fund).

We apparently have a "self directed" option too - where there's a $125 annual admnistration fees and "some additional fees might apply" - I am still trying to see what retail fund choices are possible with self directed option.

Seems like these "Megacorp 401ks administered by __" are all similiar....

 

[jazz4cash]

Our plan is administered by Merrill Lynch.

The stock funds are pools of money where multiple private money managers have been hired to run portions of this private pool of money. There's very little information on the fees, objectives - and, since new, no history of performance.

Why do these Megacorps force us into these privately managed pools ?


The "suspicious" side of me thinks Megacorps are concerned about their "fiduciary liability" - and by restricting stock fund choices to large "plain-vanilla" closed funds - they reduce their liability exposure (so no employees can put 100% of their money in a high-risk high-tech fund).

..

The reason is cost........
My mega-corp 401k switched over last year to a bunch of funds which are 'co-mingled pools'.....not mutual funds. I think that means the cost to mega-corp is lower and the savings are split with the fund management. Our plan is run by Fidelity and consists of mostly in-house 'pools', but also other fund companies. Still have one or two retail funds. I expect the performance will mirror the retail version of the pools in most cases, but they are all brand new with no history. They 'mapped us over to whatever they thought was equivalent to the old fund and reduced the choices from over 70 to around 35. I liked the old way better!

The 'solution' for me is to roll funds out of the 401k into a Fidelity 401k and select whatever I want. Not all 401ks allow this and it would affect my ability to use the '55 and seperated' exception from early 401k withdrawals.

 

[jblack]

The reason is cost........
My mega-corp 401k switched over last year to a bunch of funds which are 'co-mingled pools'.....not mutual funds. I think that means the cost to mega-corp is lower and the savings are split with the fund management.

Agreed, but my megacorp (it seems) does a decent job of passing much of these savings onto employees as well. The retail versions of what we have show more than double the expense ratio (DODBX = 0.52%, ours is 0.22%).

Oh well, for now I'm using the retail versions to help me ballpark my overall asset allocation across my tax-deferred and taxable accounts. That's all I'm looking to do now at the end of the year.

Thanks to all for the recent responses!

 

[Delawaredave5]

Curteosy of the OP, here's a link to the Siemen's 401(k) options:

SiemensSavingsPlanBrochure

Does anyone have a list of the available "Self Directed" funds with the Siemens plan and/or other "Megacorp administered via Hewitt" ?

When I read the Siemens brochure - it says "9,000" funds - I'm wondering if they include good "4 star, no-load" choices like Vanguard and Dodge & Cox.

My megacorp has plan similiar to Siemens - but administered via Merrill Lynch (who I hate). The self direct option brags about "1,500 funds" - but they are generally "dog funds with high loads and expenses" - AIM, etc.

Thanks !

 

[jIMOh]

I did not know this thread had this many responses (just got an e-mail about last post, and I missed the previous 5 or so responses). Thank you for replies thus far.

Here is a question, would you py $20/quarter to invest in mutual funds, or keep the institutional funds? Here is some info copied from the Hewitt sight:

The quarterly fee to maintain the self-directed brokerage window account is $20. This is a Hewitt fee that covers the administrative costs of the plan offering the self-directed brokerage (SDB) window account. The fee will be deducted from your account balance in investment options other than your SDB account (and other than the "Let's Share" account for active employees) at the end of each calendar quarter in which you have a balance. The fee deduction will be pro-rata across your investment options.

Another piece of cost info

Cost savings--Discount brokerage prices, plus waived front-end sales charges and no transaction fees on a wide array of traditional load mutual funds*, and sales commissions as low as $9.95 on stock trades of 1,000 shares or less plus $0.015 per share on trades of 1,001 shares or more, whether you trade online or use the automated phone system**

Here are my current fund allocations and the descriptions:


45%

Description [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]This summary represents past performance and should not be considered indicative of future performance. Returns measure net investment income and capital gains or losses from portfolio investments as an annualized average, assuming the reinvestment of dividends. When a participant invests in a unit of this option the participant’s account receives a pro-rata share of each underlying portfolio. At the close of each business day the trustee of the Siemens savings plans aggregates the total value of all securities and divides this amount by the number of outstanding units to arrive at a per-unit net asset value, or NAV. Participant-directed transactions are valued at this NAV. Interest and dividends are reinvested as earned, increasing the value of each unit. The Investment Committee of Siemens Corporation may allocate amounts to registered and non-registered investment entities in its sole discretion and reserves the right to change investment mangers and/or the underlying investment entity at any time and from time to time. The Pension Fund Management Department of Siemens Corporation may periodically rebalance to the target weightings in order to maintain the investment objective and style of this of this investment option. This investment option may include an index portfolio or allocation of money to a money market mutual fund to provide liquidity necessary to accommodate daily transactions. Unless otherwise indicated, money market portfolios are managed by the trustee of the master trust for the Siemens savings plans, Mellon Bank, N.A. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Approximately 10% of this option is held in an S&P 500 Index portfolio, with the remainder invested in one or more widely diversified portfolios, each holding stock issued primarily by large and medium-size U.S. companies. [/FONT]​

Objective and Market Benchmark ​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Seeks long-term capital growth while generating returns that exceed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. [/FONT]​

ER is .27%

​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]15%[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Description [/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]This summary represents past performance and should not be considered indicative of future performance. Returns measure net investment income and capital gains or losses from portfolio investments as an annualized average, assuming the reinvestment of dividends. When a participant invests in a unit of this option the participant’s account receives a pro-rata share of each underlying portfolio. At the close of each business day the trustee of the Siemens savings plans aggregates the total value of all securities and divides this amount by the number of outstanding units to arrive at a per-unit net asset value, or NAV. Participant-directed transactions are valued at this NAV. Interest and dividends are reinvested as earned, increasing the value of each unit. The Investment Committee of Siemens Corporation may allocate amounts to registered and non-registered investment entities in its sole discretion and reserves the right to change investment mangers and/or the underlying investment entity at any time and from time to time. The Pension Fund Management Department of Siemens Corporation may periodically rebalance to the target weightings in order to maintain the investment objective and style of this of this investment option. This investment option may include an index portfolio or allocation of money to a money market mutual fund to provide liquidity necessary to accommodate daily transactions. Unless otherwise indicated, money market portfolios are managed by the trustee of the master trust for the Siemens savings plans, Mellon Bank, N.A. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]Invests primarily in the stocks of companies based outside the United States. These companies operate in countries considered to have well-developed, smoothly functioning securities markets and an underlying legal structure that supports financial investment. In addition to the risks associated with equity investments, this option carries the added risk of exposure to fluctuations in foreign currencies. [/FONT][/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Objective and Market Benchmark [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]Seeks long-term capital growth with performance exceeding that of the Morgan Stanley Capital International Europe, Australasia, Far East (MSCE EAFE) Index. [/FONT][/FONT]​

ER is .42%

10%

Non-U.S. Emerging Markets Stock ​

Investment option summary as of September 30, 2007 ​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]The Non-U.S. Emerging Markets Stock investment option is one of eight portfolio building blocks available in the Siemens savings plan. The plan also offers five investment options in the ready-made investment portfolios category and a self-directed brokerage window. [/FONT]​

Description
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]This summary represents past performance and should not be considered indicative of future performance. Returns measure net investment income and capital gains or losses from portfolio investments as an annualized average, assuming the reinvestment of dividends. When a participant invests in a unit of this option the participant’s account receives a pro-rata share of each underlying portfolio. At the close of each business day the trustee of the Siemens savings plans aggregates the total value of all securities and divides this amount by the number of outstanding units to arrive at a per-unit net asset value, or NAV. Participant-directed transactions are valued at this NAV. Interest and dividends are reinvested as earned, increasing the value of each unit. The Investment Committee of Siemens Corporation may allocate amounts to registered and non-registered investment entities in its sole discretion and reserves the right to change investment mangers and/or the underlying investment entity at any time and from time to time. The Pension Fund Management Department of Siemens Corporation may periodically rebalance to the target weightings in order to maintain the investment objective and style of this of this investment option. This investment option may include an index portfolio or allocation of money to a money market mutual fund to provide liquidity necessary to accommodate daily transactions. Unless otherwise indicated, money market portfolios are managed by the trustee of the master trust for the Siemens savings plans, Mellon Bank, N.A. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Invests primarily in the stocks of companies based outside the United States, in countries considered to have less highly developed securities markets. In addition to the risks associated with equity investments, this option carries the added risk of exposure to fluctuations in foreign currencies and risks associated with emerging financial markets, including political and operational risks. [/FONT]​

Objective and Market Benchmark ​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Seeks long-term capital growth with performance exceeding that of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets Free Index. [/FONT]​

ER is .75%

25%​

U.S. Small Cap Stock ​

Investment option summary as of September 30, 2007 ​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]The U.S. Small Cap Stock investment option is one of eight portfolio building blocks available in the Siemens savings plan. The plan also offers five investment options in the ready-made investment portfolios category and a self-directed brokerage window. [/FONT]​

Description

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]This summary represents past performance and should not be considered indicative of future performance. Returns measure net investment income and capital gains or losses from portfolio investments as an annualized average, assuming the reinvestment of dividends. When a participant invests in a unit of this option the participant’s account receives a pro-rata share of each underlying portfolio. At the close of each business day the trustee of the Siemens savings plans aggregates the total value of all securities and divides this amount by the number of outstanding units to arrive at a per-unit net asset value, or NAV. Participant-directed transactions are valued at this NAV. Interest and dividends are reinvested as earned, increasing the value of each unit. The Investment Committee of Siemens Corporation may allocate amounts to registered and non-registered investment entities in its sole discretion and reserves the right to change investment mangers and/or the underlying investment entity at any time and from time to time. The Pension Fund Management Department of Siemens Corporation may periodically rebalance to the target weightings in order to maintain the investment objective and style of this of this investment option. This investment option may include an index portfolio or allocation of money to a money market mutual fund to provide liquidity necessary to accommodate daily transactions. Unless otherwise indicated, money market portfolios are managed by the trustee of the master trust for the Siemens savings plans, Mellon Bank, N.A. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Invests in one or more diversified portfolios of small companies whose stock is traded in U.S. securities markets. [/FONT]​

Objective and Market Benchmark ​

[FONT=Arial,Arial]Seeks long-term capital growth of principal, with performance exceeding that of the Russell 2500 Index. [/FONT]​

ER is .64%

I also contribute to company stock fund and 2 bond funds in smaller increments.​

If I went with self directed brokerage, I'd probably use T Rowe Price funds and a few others.​

15% PRFDX T Rowe Equity Income-Large Value
5% ADVDX Alpine Dynamic Dividend- aggressive large value
15% PRPFX Permanent Portfolio- growth
5% ULPIX Ultra Bull- aggressive large growth
10% PRDMX T Rowe Diversified Mid Cap
5% CGMFX CGM Focus- aggressive growth
10% PRDSX T Rowe Diversified small cap
5% MNMSX Manning and Napier Small Cap or other aggressive small cap fund
15% TRIGX T Rowe International Growth and Income
10% PRIDX T Rowe International Discovery
5% other (probably a bond fund)​

My allocation is designed to be 45% large cap, 15% mid cap, 15% small cap, 15% large foreign and 10% small foreign. I designed above so 1/3 of each position is aggressive and 2/3 of each position is diversified on domestic side. My IRAs have the diversified funds already, looking for some extra oomph.​