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Xcel Energy 401(k) retirement plan: the investment options

Does your 401(k) vote the way you would? $124m of the $217m in the Xcel Energy 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

Xcel Energy 401(k) match and balances, from the filing

Company money in
about $2,670 per active participant
$3m in plan year 2024
Employees saved
about $7,610 each
$7m in plan year 2024
Average balance
$160,300
1,103 people with a balance
In the plan
$177m
at the end of plan year 2024

Company money is the match plus any other employer contributions, averaged over all 961 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 XCEL ENERGY INC. as “NEW CENTURY ENERGIES, INC. EMPLOYEE INVESTMENT PLAN FOR BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES AND FORMER NON-BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES” · EIN 410448030, plan number 006 · search the filings

The Xcel Energy 401(k) holds $217m. Of the $124m 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.

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

What the plan holdsVehicleVoting recordValue
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Institutional 500 Index Trust **” Collective trust or separate account NONE $66m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Federal Money Market **” Money-market fund PUBLISHED $18m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares **” Not identified from the filing Not counted either way $17m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Developed Market Index Institutional Plus **” Not identified from the filing Not counted either way $13m
listed as “Self-Directed Brokerage Fund **” Brokerage window Whatever the saver buys $12m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Mid-Cap Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares **” Not identified from the filing Not counted either way $12m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard PRIMECAP Fund Admiral Shares **” Not identified from the filing Not counted either way $9m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Trust Plus **” Collective trust or separate account NONE $9m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Target Retirement 2030 Trust Plus **” Collective trust or separate account NONE $8m
BlackRocklisted as “BlackRock Total Return Bond Fund; Class M **” Bonds No shares to vote $7m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Institutional Total Bond Market Index Trust **” Collective trust or separate account NONE $7m
Vanguardlisted as “Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Trust Plus **” Collective trust or separate account NONE $7m

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 Xcel Energy 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 Xcel Energy; 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 74.8% 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.

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