By ELEANOR LAISE
Jeff Powelson knows how tough it is to fight for lower fees in a 401(k) retirement plan. He tried to get his employer to add lower-cost investment options to its plan in late 2008. He failed. But when he switched jobs last year, the 27-year-old took one look at his new, pricey 401(k) plan and decided to try again.
This time, Mr. Powelson, a controller at a Washington corporate foreign-exchange firm, is winning the fight. After he lobbied for months, his employer Tempus Consulting plans to replace its plan’s higher-cost actively managed funds with cheaper index-tracking funds. “At companies our size, you don’t have someone devoted 24 hours a day to these human-resource things,” says Keinan Ashkenazi, a co-owner and principal at Tempus. Mr. Powelson “was able to take it by the horns and really look at it.”
When it comes to 401(k) plans, Mr. Powelson says, “I am rather passionate.”
wsj.com