You Own Wall Street › Employer plans › Skywest

Skywest 401(k): company match and investment options

Does your 401(k) vote the way you would? $634m of the $1.42bn in the Skywest 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

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

Company money in
about $4,160 per active participant
$65m in plan year 2024
Employees saved
about $4,960 each
$77m in plan year 2024
Average balance
$111,400
12,750 people with a balance
In the plan
$1.42bn
at the end of plan year 2024

Company money is the match plus any other employer contributions, averaged over all 15,517 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.

12,750 people have a balance in the Skywest 401(k), and it holds $1.42bn. Of the $1.24bn whose vehicle the plan reports, 51% 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 SKYWEST, INC. as “SKYWEST, INC. EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT PLAN” · EIN 870292166, plan number 001 · search the filings

What the plan holdsVoting recordValue
Common/collective trusts NONE $634m
Registered funds (mutual funds and ETFs) PUBLISHED $609m
Employer stock Voted by the plan trustee $45m
Participant loans No shares to vote $14m
Joint ventures No shares to vote $37,310

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 Skywest’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. Skywest 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 51% 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 91.7% of its assets. The remaining $102m 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.

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 planSystems 401(k)2,399 savers · $11mCarepathrx 401(k)3,151 savers · $133mCoorstek 401(k)3,269 savers · $345mContinental Automotive 401(k)4,191 savers · $1.09bnMfa Financial 401(k)$6m in the planMeruelo Group 401(k)3,988 savers · $125m