A company that a friend of mine used to work for has undergone a very closely guarded disolution.

They got a letter from the company saying that they were doing a "deconversion" and that they needed to fill out a form for a distribution.

Any idea what this means? What is a deconversion? Any speculation as to what is going on?

The funny (as in strange) thing about this, a shareholder, they recieved notice that the company was going to be disolved on a date that was 3 weeks ago. Yet the letter said to mail the form back to the company at a PO Box and to send it to the attention of the plan adminstator, who is listed by name and is/was one of the employees.

In order for there to be a 401k plan, there has to be a company.

"Deconversion" means they're closing down the 401k (probably because they're dissolving ) and your friend needs to request how they want the funds distributed ... send them the cash, roll it over, whatever. Your friend will have to send it to the plan administrator because the financial services company managing the 401k termination won't deal directly with them, only the company. Your friend is going to be waiting for a while before they get their check because the IRS gets involved whenever a company shuts down a 401k completely.

Sounds like Chris won

huh?