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Avient 401(k) retirement plan: the investment options

Does your 401(k) vote the way you would? $671m of the $731m in the Avient plan votes in secret. Fidelity 500 Index Fund, the most common fund in the plans we track, publishes every vote: answer 3 of its ballots, then see your result.

The question on the ballot

As filed

Avient 401(k) match and balances, from the filing

Company money in
about $3,800 per active participant
$12m in plan year 2024
Employees saved
about $8,270 each
$26m in plan year 2024
Average balance
$155,400
4,364 people with a balance
In the plan
$678m
at the end of plan year 2024

Company money is the match plus any other employer contributions, averaged over all 3,116 active participants, including anyone who did not contribute. The filing reports dollars, not the match formula; the plan’s summary plan description states the formula.

SourceThe plan’s annual report to the Department of Labor — Form 5500, Schedule H, plan year 2024 · filed by AVIENT CORPORATION as “AVIENT RETIREMENT SAVINGS PLAN” · EIN 341730488, plan number 010 · search the filings

The Avient 401(k) holds $731m. Of the $671m we could identify from the plan’s own filing, every dollar sits in a fund that publishes no record of how it voted your shares — collective trusts, which unlike a mutual fund file no Form N-PX and leave no public trace of a single vote.

SourceAvient’s own annual retirement-plan filing with the SEC (Form 11-K, Schedule of Assets) · open the filing

What the plan holdsVehicleVoting recordValue
Fidelity 500 Index Fundlisted as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $127m
Northern Trust Collective Russell 1000 Growth Fundlisted as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $64m
T. Rowe Price Retire 2035listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $60m
T. Rowe Price Retire 2030listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $58m
T. Rowe Price Retire 2040listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $43m
New York Life Insurance Accountlisted as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $39m
Self-Directed Brokerage Account - Fidelity National Financial Services **listed as “Various investments” Brokerage window Whatever the saver buys $33m
T. Rowe Price Retire 2025listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $33m
American Funds - Washington Mutual Investors R6listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $33m
T. Rowe Price Retire 2045listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $33m
Fidelity Total International Index Fundlisted as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $24m
T. Rowe Price Retire 2050listed as “units” Collective trust or separate account NONE $21m

The 12 largest holdings in the plan. “Vehicle” is the description the filing itself gives each investment.

Why there is nothing to show

A mutual fund has to file Form N-PX every year listing every vote it cast on your behalf. A collective investment trust does not. It is a bank-run vehicle sold only inside retirement plans, it is cheaper, and it is now where most 401(k) default money sits — including most target-date funds, which is where savers who never chose anything are put.

So the shares bought with Avient employees’ retirement savings are voted every proxy season — on executive pay, on board seats, on climate and workforce proposals — and there is no public document anywhere recording how. This is not an oversight by Avient; it is what the disclosure rules currently require, which is to say: nothing.

What you can do

Check whether your plan offers any registered fund as an alternative — those publish their records, and you can read them here. If it does not, the menu itself is the thing that has to change, and that is a decision made by the plan’s fiduciary committee, not by you alone.

See how funds that do publish voted →

CoverageWe classified 100% of this plan’s assets from the filing. The figure above is the share of the money we could classify; anything we could not identify is excluded from it rather than assumed either way.

Other employer plans

The largest employer plans on the site, and a few more. Each page shows what the plan’s funds did with the shares its savers paid for.

Microsoft 401(k)$64.92bn in the planBank of America 401(k)248,103 savers · $62.90bnJPMorgan Chase 401(k)297,359 savers · $52.91bnGoogle 401(k)154,637 savers · $48.74bnWells Fargo 401(k)$43.80bn in the planAmazon 401(k)943,213 savers · $34.59bnInternational Business Machines 401(k)$28.25bn in the planIntel 401(k)$26.91bn in the planKeysight Technologies 401(k)7,443 savers · $2.62bnSuntory Global Spirits 401(k)2,864 savers · $631mPage Southerland Page 401(k)1,900 savers · $242mTransportation Insight 401(k)1,249 savers · $77mDillard's 401(k)$2.88bn in the planEllucian 401(k)3,441 savers · $660m