Amgen Retirement And Savings Plan: Merrill Lynch
Amgen Inc. · Thousand Oaks, CA · EIN 953540776 · Plan 001 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024
Merrill Lynch is the recordkeeper named on this filing, the company that keeps the account records for this plan. Where to log in, and who to call.
What Amgen put into the plan, per active participant
$17,909
Amgen Inc. put $17,909 into this plan for each of its 14,965 active participants in plan year 2024. That is the whole employer side, matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions and reallocated forfeitures together, because the Form 5500 reports them on one line, so it is not the match rate.
Amgen put in more per active participant than 92% of plans with 5,000+ participants in pharmaceuticals and chemicals. The middle plan in that group of 63 reported $8,101. Pharmaceuticals and chemicals comes from business code 325410, which Amgen Inc. entered on its own Form 5500. Sponsors pick that code themselves, so a code that does not describe what the employer does ranks the plan against the wrong companies.
What this figure cannot separate: how much Amgen pays, and how much it puts in
This is dollars, not a rate. A Form 5500 carries no payroll, so the figure reflects both how much the employer puts in and how much the employer pays: two plans running the same formula report different amounts when one pays better. Crossing the peer group with industry holds most of that difference still, and none of it disappears.
This is one plan year, not an average. A true-up, a plan merger or a one-off contribution moves a single year on its own.
Source: Form 5500 filing for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, received by the DOL October 9, 2025 · Read the filing (PDF) ↗
The $17,909 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Amgen Inc. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula on its own for plan year 2025: the section below reads $2,475 a year at a $49,500 salary, and the same filing states employer contributions made outside the match. That second figure is what the formula pays one worker on that salary, and not an amount either filing reports. The two figures cover different plan years and measure different things, so neither one is the other one corrected.
What the plan cost, per participant
$484.62
The plan paid $484.62 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, more expensive than 100% of plans with 5,000+ participants. The middle plan of that size paid $54.84.
Why a plan this big pays less per person before anything else
Bigger plans pay less per head by construction, because the same negotiated bill divides across more people. That is why this ranking sits inside the plan's own size cohort and is never taken across all plans.
Schedule H reports only what came out of plan assets. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees taken inside fund expense ratios, never appear here, so this is a floor and not the all-in cost.
401(k) Monitor Score
64 out of 100
Where this plan stands against plans of its size and industry on two amounts its Form 5500 reports: employer money in per active person, and plan-paid cost per person. It reads no match formula, no vesting schedule and no fund lineup, because a Form 5500 states none of them.
- What the employer put in, per active participant: $17,909. Higher than 92% of plans with 5,000+ participants in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
- What the plan cost, per participant: $485. Nothing among plans with 5,000+ participants costs more.
On this page: who holds your account · the match and vesting terms · what to check next · every figure on the filing · late deposits · fees itemised · the plans this one is ranked against · service providers
Who holds your account
Schedule C of this filing reports Merrill Lynch, filed as “MERRILL LYNCH PIERCE FENNER & SMITH”. That is the company paid to keep the account records: what is in an account, what went into it, and usually the site a participant signs in to. The trustee that holds the plan’s assets can be a different company, and this filing does not name it.
663 plans on file name Merrill Lynch as their recordkeeper, at a median of $87.18 per participant.
Participants log in at Merrill Benefits OnLine ↗. 401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Merrill Lynch or with any other recordkeeper, and takes nothing for this link. It is here because that is where the account is.
| Recordkeeper | Merrill Lynch |
|---|---|
| Recordkeeper EINThe provider's own employer identification number, as the filing states it. | 135674085 |
| Plan sponsor telephoneThe number Amgen Inc. filed on the Form 5500. It reaches the employer, not the recordkeeper. | (805) 447-1000 |
The match and vesting terms, from a Form 11-K
The match formula and the vesting schedule are stated in a Form 11-K, which is filed only by employers whose plan holds company stock. A Form 5500 reports neither.
What Amgen puts in
$2,475
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“In addition, the Company makes a contribution equal to amounts contributed by the participant as pre-tax contributions or Roth contributions, including such contributions designated as catch-up contributions, of up to 5% of eligible compensation (Matching Contributions) up to a maximum of $17,500 in 2025.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Contribute at least 5% of your pay to collect the full match.
That is $2,475 a year at a $49,500 salary, and it scales with your own.
Vesting score
100 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 48% of the 369 schedules we have scored.
It measures vesting speed and nothing else. It says nothing about the size of the match, what the plan charges, or the funds inside it.
Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested with respect to their Individual Contributions, Matching Contributions and Special Contributions, if any, and earnings and losses (hereafter referred to as earnings) thereon. Participants hired prior to January 1, 2020, are also immediately vested with respect to their Core Contributions and earnings thereon. Participants hired on or after January 1, 2020, vest in full with respect to their Core Contributions and earnings thereon after three years of service, as defined by the terms of the Plan, or upon reaching age 65 while employed by Amgen, if earlier.”
The wait before the match starts and the year-end true-up appear above when the filing states them. Neither is part of the score, and a filing that is silent on one of them is not a plan without it.
What the plan costs, against plans of its size
100th percentile
$484.62 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, more expensive than 100% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by Amgen Inc., whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.
What to check next
Collecting the whole match
Amgen’s Form 11-K pays the whole match at 5% of pay, which is $2,475 a year at a $49,500 salary and scales with your own. Your payslip and your Merrill Benefits OnLine ↗ account both show the rate you set. A rate below 5% collects less than the whole match.
That Form 11-K covers plan year 2025. The plan’s Summary Plan Description states the terms in force, and the plan administrator must provide it to participants on request.
What to ask about the fees
This plan paid $484.62 per participant out of plan assets, more than 100% of plans with 5,000+ participants, where the middle plan paid $54.84. The filing does not say what the difference buys. Two questions put that to a benefits or HR team: what the recordkeeping and administration contract costs, and how much of it comes out of participant accounts rather than being paid by Amgen. The lines this total is made of are further down.
Your own numbers are not on this page
Every figure here is the whole plan for plan year 2024, taken from one filing and divided by headcounts. Your own contribution rate, your balance and the fees taken from your account are on your recordkeeper’s site, which this filing names as Merrill Benefits OnLine ↗. What you may put in during a year is set by the IRS and not by the plan: this year’s limits ↗.
Key figures
| Total plan assets, end of year | $7,722,176,696 |
|---|---|
| Net assets | $7,715,420,902 |
| Participants, beginning of year | 20,142 |
| Of which active | 14,965 |
| Plan type | Single employer |
| Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against. | 5,000+ participants |
| Automatic enrollmentForm 5500 line 8a, code 2S: “Plan provides for automatic enrollment in plan that has elective contributions deducted from payroll.” The box says the plan has the feature and nothing more. The Form 5500 carries no default contribution rate, no escalation schedule and no count of who was enrolled, so none of those is stated here. | Ticked on this filing |
| How the filing meets the 401(k) nondiscrimination rules, plan year 2024Schedule R part VII, as ticked. The rule compares what the higher-paid put in with what everyone else puts in, and the boxes say which method the plan used for this year. A plan can tick a different box next year, so this is an answer for one year, not a label. | Design-based safe harbor |
| Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024The rest came from employees, who put in $237,183,261. The share falls when employees save more, so a plan whose staff contribute heavily reads lower here through no act of the employer. It is printed as a fact and it is not part of the score. | 53% |
Late deposits of employee contributions
Schedule H line 4a of this filing is answered no: it reports no money withheld from participants’ pay that reached the plan later than the law allows, for plan year 2024.
The line is answered by the employer about its own plan and nobody checks it here, so a no is an answer rather than a clean bill of health. 13,904 of the 55,904 plans that answered this line answered yes.
Plan-paid administrative expenses
The plan paid $9,761,225 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 20,142 participants: $484.62 per participant.
| Contract administrator fees | not reported in filing |
|---|---|
| Professional fees | not reported in filing |
| Investment management fees | $7,903,793 |
| Other administrative fees | not reported in filing |
These are plan-paid expenses from Schedule H only. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees embedded in fund expense ratios, never appear here. This figure is a floor, not the all-in cost, and a low number is not “free”.
The plans this one is ranked against
Fees on this page are ranked against the 5,000+ participant cohort, where the median plan pays $54.84 per participant. The sponsor files from California, one of 6,801 plans on file there, at a median of $109.24 per participant. Its business code places the plan in pharmaceuticals and chemicals, one of 942 on file, which run to a median of $128.47.
Plans of a similar size in California
| Plan | Participants | Cost per participant |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Inc. 401(k) Retirement Savings PlanAdobe Inc. | 20,783 | $34.62 |
| Raley's 401(k) Retirement Savings PlanRaley's | 20,651 | $33.64 |
| Applied Materials, Inc. Employee Savings & Retirement PlanApplied Materials, Inc. | 20,057 | $99.12 |
| PG&E Corp. Retirement Savings Plan For Union-Represented EmployeesPG&E Corporation | 19,925 | $153.12 |
Service providers (Schedule C)
| Provider | Service codes | Direct comp. ($) | Indirect comp. ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith | 64, 50, 37, 25, 21, 38, 51, 15 | 5,341,609 | 0 |
| Sustainable Growth Advisers, Lp | 51, 68, 28 | 976,987 | 0 |
| Arrowmark Partners | 51, 28 | 953,956 | 0 |
| Northern Trust Company | 62, 52, 50, 28, 25 | 937,363 | 0 |
| Pzena Investment Management | 51, 28 | 829,909 | 0 |
| Aristotle Capital Boston | 51, 28 | 572,377 | 0 |
| Sands Capital Management, LLC | 51, 28 | 314,382 | 0 |
| Wellington Trust Company | 51, 28 | 105,705 | 0 |
| Northern Trust Investments Inc. | 51, 28 | 11,812 | 0 |
Useful links
- Find a 401(k) you left at an old job ↗
The DOL's Retirement Savings Lost & Found. Free and official.
- Read this plan's Form 5500 as filed (PDF) ↗
The document every figure above was read from, served by the DOL. Acknowledgement ID 20251009163950NAL0007320609001.
Source
Everything this page reports about the plan itself was read from one document: the Form 5500 annual return that Amgen Inc. filed with the US Department of Labor for the plan year ended December 31, 2024. Nothing here is estimated, modelled or supplied by the employer to this site.
Where the page compares this plan with others, the comparison is computed from the same Form 5500 release across the peer group each figure names. The filing is below, and the identifiers under it find it again without this page.
Read the filing as submitted (PDF, dol.gov) ↗
| Document | Form 5500 annual return for plan year 2024 |
|---|---|
| Filed with | US Department of Labor, EBSA (through EFAST2) |
| Filed byAs spelled on the filing | AMGEN INC. |
| Employer EIN | 953540776 |
| Plan number | 001 |
| Filing ACK_ID | 20251009163950NAL0007320609001 |
| Received by the DOL | October 9, 2025 |
| Bulk dataset | DOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA) |
| Dataset last refreshed | July 28, 2026 |
Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · Search EFAST2 by EIN and plan number ↗
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Amgen Inc., with the Department of Labor or with this plan’s recordkeeper, and publishes this page without their involvement. It republishes a public filing and says where it came from.
Filings lag by design: a plan can file up to 9½ months after its year ends, so this is the newest data on file. Why filings lag
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, "Amgen Retirement And Savings Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20251009163950NAL0007320609001, plan year ended December 31, 2024. 401(k) Monitor Score 64 out of 100 (exact value 64.39).
