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Cardinal Health 401(k) retirement plan: the investment options

Does your 401(k) vote the way you would? $3.53bn of the $4.41bn in the Cardinal Health 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

Cardinal Health 401(k) match and balances, from the filing

Company money in
about $2,530 per active participant
$79m in plan year 2024
Employees saved
about $5,320 each
$165m in plan year 2024
Average balance
$148,000
32,188 people with a balance
In the plan
$4.76bn
at the end of plan year 2024

Company money is the match plus any other employer contributions, averaged over all 31,015 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 CARDINAL HEALTH, INC. as “CARDINAL HEALTH 401(K) SAVINGS PLAN” · EIN 310958666, plan number 055 · search the filings

The Cardinal Health 401(k) holds $4.41bn. Of the $3.53bn 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.

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

What the plan holdsVehicleVoting recordValue
Fidelity Management Trust Companylisted as “Growth Company Commingled Pool” Collective trust or separate account NONE $901m
listed as “Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company 500 Index Trust” Collective trust or separate account NONE $683m
Dodge Coxlisted as “Stock Fund” Not identified from the filing Not counted either way $473m
Fidelity Institutional Asset Management Trust Co.listed as “Small Capitalization Core Commingled Pool” Collective trust or separate account NONE $333m
Fidelity Institutional Asset Management Trust Co.listed as “Core Plus Commingled Pool” Collective trust or separate account NONE $294m
Fidelity Management Trust Companylisted as “Diversified International Commingled Pool” Collective trust or separate account NONE $258m
listed as “Cardinal Health, Inc. Common shares” Not identified from the filing Not counted either way $257m
listed as “Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company Total Stock Market Index Trust” Collective trust or separate account NONE $249m
listed as “Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company Total International Stock Market Index Trust” Collective trust or separate account NONE $243m
listed as “BlackRock Institutional Trust Company Global Allocation Collective Fund” Collective trust or separate account NONE $115m
listed as “BlackRock Institutional Trust Company U.S. TIPS Non-Lendable Fund” Collective trust or separate account NONE $88m
listed as “Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company Total Bond Market Index Trust” Collective trust or separate account NONE $78m

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 Cardinal Health 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 Cardinal Health; 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 81.7% 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 planMattress Firm 401(k)8,611 savers · $279mLawrence Group 401(k)1,104 savers · $96mSysco 401(k)55,942 savers · $5.25bnM. A. Mortenson 401(k)4,281 savers · $827mIntegrity Marketing Group 401(k)5,204 savers · $269mPrairie Meadows Racetrack & Casino 401(k)1,124 savers · $91m