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Samsung 401(k): company match and investment options
Does your 401(k) vote the way you would? $1.70bn of the $3.12bn in the Samsung 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
Samsung 401(k) match and balances, from the filing
- Company money in
- about $6,500 per active participant
- $90m in plan year 2024
- Employees saved
- about $14,150 each
- $196m in plan year 2024
- Average balance
- $169,900
- 18,369 people with a balance
- In the plan
- $3.12bn
- at the end of plan year 2024
Company money is the match plus any other employer contributions, averaged over all 13,861 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.
18,369 people have a balance in the Samsung 401(k), and it holds $3.12bn. Of the $2.87bn whose vehicle the plan reports, 59.3% sits in funds that publish no record of how they voted your shares — collective trusts and separate accounts, which unlike a mutual fund file no Form N-PX and leave no public trace of a single vote.
SourceThe plan’s own annual report to the Department of Labor — Form 5500, Schedule H, plan year 2024 · filed by SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC. as “SAMSUNG 401(K) PLAN” · EIN 132951153, plan number 001 · search the filings
| What the plan holds | Voting record | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Common/collective trusts | NONE | $1.61bn |
| Registered funds (mutual funds and ETFs) | PUBLISHED | $1.17bn |
| Directly held common stock | Voted by the plan trustee | $163m |
| Pooled separate accounts | NONE | $98m |
| Participant loans | No shares to vote | $36m |
| Government bonds | No shares to vote | $3m |
| Directly held preferred stock | Voted by the plan trustee | $1m |
| Corporate bonds (other) | No shares to vote | $627,981 |
Every asset class the plan itemised on Schedule H, straight from the filing. These are categories, not fund names: Schedule H asks what KIND of vehicle the money is in, never which one, which is why no fund is named on this page.
Why there is no list of Samsung’s funds anywhere
Some employers file a Form 11-K with the SEC each year, and it contains a schedule naming every investment in the 401(k), fund by fund. Samsung does not file one, and that is not an oversight: a plan only has to file an 11-K when interests in it are registered securities, which in practice means the 401(k) offers a company stock fund. Plans that pay equity as RSUs outside the plan, as most large technology employers do, never trigger the requirement.
So the only public account of this plan is the Form 5500 above, which reports what categories the money sits in and never which funds. That is the whole reason this page can tell you 59.3% of the identified money votes in secret and cannot tell you which manager cast those votes.
Why the secrecy, and what you can do
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.
Check whether your plan offers any registered mutual 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 →
CoverageThe plan reports the vehicle for 98.6% of its assets. The remaining $397,597 is filed under headings that do not say what kind of vehicle holds it, and is excluded from the percentage above 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.