Big Data and Form 5500 – Part 1

[1].  Depending on the number of participants in the plan, additional schedules are required listing the plan’s financials, expenses and participant counts.

What’s the point?

Providing investment management and recordkeeping services to the plan is a huge market.  Just think, the top 10 total disclosed fees by filing on Schedule C of Form 5500 are a staggering $1.59 billion.  These 10 filings alone hold assets of $349.8 billion.

Important Facts

• Total filings for the 2011 plan year:
  • Defined Contribution – over 570,000
  • Defined Benefit – over 35,000
  • Health & Welfare – over 65,000

• About 74% of plan filings used the Form 5500 Short Form (SF) which is available for plans with less than 100 participants.

• There are over $8.12 billion in fees listed on Schedule C for the 2011 plan year.  Short Form filings do not require Schedule C.

• Many of the investment management fees for defined contribution plans are included as eligible indirect compensation (EIC) which means these expenses are not itemized on Schedule C.

 Part 2 of the Big Data and Form 5500 series will include more insight into the breakdown and reasonableness of plan fees.

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