This article feels overblown.

Here’s a trust that has 250 billion, but reports prices and does many other things the article says isn’t required: https://workplace.vanguard.com/investments/product-details/f...

Not opaque and it has lower fees than the retail S&P 500 funds.

Yes I don’t get the worry on an individual basis. If my money is in a CIT they tell me exactly what it’s invested in and it is audited every year.

The worry here seems to be on a systemic level, rather. No one knows how much in aggregate is in these types of trusts nor how it is in aggregate allocated. Which may be a concern from a systemwide risk management pov but far less so for an individual worker.

Using Vanguard anything as a counter-example isn't terribly persuasive; they're unique in the market.

In the context of the article, this type of trust you linked has got to be the special case of all special cases.

Since that trust is tracking the S&P 500, it has to be literally equivalent to its VOO ETF counterpart. If it ever rebalanced in a way that no longer tracked the S&P, or even mysteriously changed disclosure in some way, investors would dump it the next day (for an index fund that is literally the same except for expense ratio and disclosure rules).

Moreover, everything in that trust is quite obviously publicly traded companies. The article is about retirement funds gaining access to private markets[1].

tldr; this ain't that.

1: clarification edit. Also, my gut tells me I should have written that as "private markets gaining access to retirement funds" but I really don't know enough about it.