This week BrightScope rated several notable plans which can now be found on the BrightScope website:

Company

Net Assets

Boeing – $27,500,000,000

United Airlines – $2,800,000,000

McDonald’s – $2,150,000,000

Yesterday Barack Obama announced his pick to head the EBSA.  At the ASPPA conference last week many people were anxiously awaiting the nomination.  It seems things at the DOL slow down a bit when the new administration isn’t fully in place.  We think that this is a very important role in the administration and are [...]

BrightScope has spent the past few days at the ASPPA 2009 401(k) Summit.  Brian Graff and his team at ASPPA have again assembled an amazing group of speakers. The BrightScope team has enjoyed listening to and meeting with many of the thought leaders in the 401(k) industry. Here are a few thoughts and ideas that [...]

Back in January, when BrightScope CEO Mike Alfred started calling 2009  the “Year of Transparency”, very few people took him seriously.  Gradually however this idea is taking hold.  Here are some recent events, articles and thoughts that align on this issue:

New President Barack Obama pledges to run the “most open and transparent government in History.”
Wired [...]

This week BrightScope rated several notable plans which can now be found on the BrightScope website:

Company

Net Assets

Raytheon – $10,980,000,000

DuPont – $9,800,000,000

Johnson Controls – $2,760,000,000

DaimlerChrysler – $2,570,000,000

Emerson Electric – $2,100,000,000

Anheuser Busch – $2,000,000,000

UnitedHealth – $1,450,000,000

Texas Instruments – $1,300,000,000

Enterprise Rent-A-Car – $915,000,000

There are also 4 newly rated plans that are the best in their Peer Group:

Company

Net [...]

BrightScope made a minor change in the way it calculates average account balances so that the number reflects the average account balances across all employees, including those who are retired but still have assets in the plan. Most plans will be completely unaffected by this change, but the change will affect a small minority [...]

BrightScope has been very fortunate to receive a lot of great press in the last month:

Employee Benefit Adviser March 2009 Cover Story: “Guiding Lights“
BusinessWeek: “Rating Your 401(k)“
Pensions & Investments: “New ranking pits DC plan vs. DC plan“
San Diego Business Journal: “Bright(Scope) Idea: Firm Launched site to Compare 401(k)s“
CNNMoney: “Find out how your 401(k) stacks up“
La [...]

There are 40+ newly rated companies on BrightScope.com today.  Here are some of the plans with the most assets:
General Electric: $26,500,000,000
.

Procter & Gamble : $16,400,000,000
.

FMR Corp. (Fidelity Investments) : $6,220,000,000
.

United Airlines: $6,100,000,000
.
International Paper: $3,400,000,000
.
Gillette: $2,190,000,000
.
Macy’s: $2,050,000,000
.
AXA Equitable: $1,870,000,000
.
Nike: $1,200,000,000
.
We have also rated over 20 plans with data that was loaded through the Plan Data Vaults [...]

Many in Washington are excited about Obama’s new Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, and it is easy to see why. This 34 year old technologist has a unique approach to technology in government:

On Moving to the cloud: “The cloud will do for government what the Internet did in the’ 90s. . .  It’s a fundamental [...]