Investments: Employer Stock

[Guest btooz]

Understanding that non qual participants only have an unsecured promise from the employer to pay a benefit, and that any Employer Stock in the asset/employer account is still the property of the company, is there any reasonable explanation as to why a non-qualified plan would suggest that the participants in the plan actually have the voting rights?

Thanks for any direction.

[four01kman]

One suggestion is this gives the participants the "illusion" of rights of ownership to the "underlying assets" in the non-qualified plan. The issue becomes interesting if the proxy vote is "passed through" to the participants and the participants choose not to exercise that right. Who then votes the proxy and how is it voted? If you do this, those questions should be answered in the plan document.