First, you should find out who is responsible for managing the plan's money. The plan administrator may be a company officer or a committee of company officials. Plans set up under a contract between a union and a group of employers often are run by a board of trustees made up of union and company officials. You will find the name of your plan administrator in Item 2 on page 1 of the Form 5500. If someone other than the plan administrator is in charge of investing the plan money, such as a bank, insurance company or investment management firm, these institutions or persons could be listed on the Schedule C attached to the Form 5500.
Many large plans use a number of different investment managers.
The forms are revised occasionally. Item numbers may vary depending on the year of the form. After you have found out who the money managers are, the second step is to check on how your pension plan's assets are being invested. The law says that plan administrators generally must report on their plan's Form 5500 whether the plan was involved in any transactions with parties in interest . Parties in interest are people or organizations who have close ties to the plan, such as your employer or union, people employed by your employer or union, trustees of the plan, the plan administrator, or relatives of those people.