Form 11-K
The annual report of an employee benefit plan that holds the company's own stock. Obscure, audited, and occasionally the only place a number appears.
MadStockAlerts Research · Updated August 28, 2026
What to take away
- It is filed for employee benefit plans holding registered securities.
- The financial statements of the plan are audited and included.
- It shows how much of the company's stock the plan holds.
- Participant-directed investment detail is disclosed.
- It is filed later than the company's own annual report.
MAD Academy Training Video · 0:46
The Filing About the Employee Plan
An 11-K reports on a company's employee stock plan, and its main value is showing how much of the plan sits in employer stock.
This lesson is part of a Stock Alerts + Tools plan.
What it is
Where employees can acquire the company's registered securities through a benefit plan, the plan itself has a reporting obligation, satisfied by Form 11-K. It contains the plan's own audited financial statements.
It is one of the least-read filings on EDGAR and it is a complete audited financial statement for an entity that holds a defined block of the company's shares.
What is in it
| Item | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Statement of net assets | What the plan holds, by investment |
| Changes in net assets | Contributions, distributions and investment results |
| Company stock holdings | The number of shares and their value |
| Participant counts | How many people are in the plan |
| Auditor's report | An opinion on the plan's statements |
The third row is the one with a use outside the plan itself. It quantifies a block of shares held on behalf of employees, which is part of the ownership picture and does not appear in the institutional ownership filings.
Why it is worth knowing about
- It is a separate audit, by an auditor who may not be the company's, of an entity holding company stock.
- The share count held is disclosed and changes year to year as employees buy and sell.
- Concentration in company stock within an employee plan is a documented risk and is quantified here.
- The filing deadline is later than the company's, so it arrives after the annual report.
The third item connects to the concentration article in the portfolio pillar. A plan heavily weighted in the employer's own stock exposes employees to their employer twice, and this filing is where the size of that exposure is stated.
- Institutional holdings13F, quarterly
- Large stakes13D and 13G
- Insider holdingsForms 3, 4 and 5
- Employee benefit plansForm 11-K, and almost nobody opens it
Where it sits in the calendar
Because it is filed months after the company's own annual report, it arrives when nothing else is being published about the company. That makes it one of the few filings that reaches EDGAR outside the reporting cycle.
Where it fits with the ownership filings
The ownership picture for a company is assembled from several filings, each covering a different kind of holder, and each with its own threshold and timetable.
| Filing | Covers | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| 13F | Institutional managers above the threshold | Quarterly, up to 45 days after quarter end |
| 13D and 13G | Holders above 5 percent | Days for 13D; periodic for 13G |
| Forms 3, 4 and 5 | Officers, directors and 10 percent owners | Two business days for a Form 4 |
| Form 11-K | Employee benefit plans holding company stock | Months after the plan year end |
| The proxy statement | Beneficial ownership table for insiders and large holders | Annually |
No single filing gives a complete picture, and the timetables differ enough that assembling one produces a composite of several different dates. That is a structural feature of the disclosure regime rather than a gap in any one document.
The fourth row is the only one covering shares held on behalf of employees, which in some companies is a substantial block and in most analyses is simply absent.