How many 401(k) plans have at least $50 million?

[Peter Gulia]

The investment-advice fiduciary rule might allow a counterparty to communicate as a non-fiduciary if, among other conditions, the communication is directed to a plan's fiduciary that manages at least $50 million (and the communicator reasonably believes the fiduciary is capable of evaluating the investment decision).  Conversely, if a plan's fiduciary does not manage at least $50 million and is not advised by a registered investment adviser or some other "institutional" fiduciary, a service provider that prefers to be a non-fiduciary must avoid a communication that a reasonable person would perceive as investment advice.

What do BenefitsLink people guess as the percentage of 401(k) plans (by number of plans, not assets of plans) that have less than $50 million?

[GMK]

Interesting question.  In my brief search, Mr. Google finds lots of information about total assets in 401(k)'s and lots of per participant information, but not by plan.

Could this be something the 5500 people know or can pull out of their data base easily?

And if anyone is starting a count, we're one.

[BG5150]

I'm sure there are data mining programs out there that could pull the info.  I know there are (unscrupulous?) advisors out there who scan the 5500's for benefit code 2G (participant-directed) and a lack of code 2F (404(c) protection).  Then they contact the employers and scare them by saying the plan isn't  in compliance with the law.  Sometimes, they even just show up to the ER's office with that little nugget.

So there has to be a way to scan for all plans and plans less than $50MM.  You jsut won't capture EZs.

[GMK]

I was thinking one could mine for the number of plans over $50M and subtract that from the total number of plans, which is/was 638k according to this:

http://www.americanbenefitscouncil.org/pub/e613e1b6-f57b-1368-c1fb-966598903769

Not perfectly accurate, but we're estimating.

[BG5150]

If you can mine the <$50MM, you can mine the total #.  That 638k was from June 2013.

[Peter Gulia]

Thank you both for the good help.

From footnote 58 of the Labor department's explanation of the rule:  "According to 2013 Form 5500 filings, 12,446 plans had assets of $50 million or more."

If one adjusts for the possibility that some employers might have more than one plan (or manage other assets), perhaps a little more than 2% could have an "institutional" fiduciary without using an adviser.