FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Feb. 14, 2024

CONTACT
Carter Dougherty
carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org

Changes to Disclosures Will Increase Visibility in some Private Fund Activities

Washington, D.C. – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) expansions to the information collected by private funds over Form PF and Form CPO will provide both the agencies and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) with greater visibility and early warning signs into portions of the $21 trillion private fund industry. 

“The private fund industry has grown to become one of the largest parts of our financial system,  and oversight and regulation of the industry urgently needs to catch up,” said Andrew Park, senior policy analyst at AFREF. “The increased data collection in this rule is a useful step, but there is much more the SEC can and should do.” 

The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) has repeatedly called for more data to be collected on private funds given both the huge size of these markets, and the ways in which problems in private markets can spread quickly through the rest of the economy.

With private funds reaching $21 trillion, the industry has a much greater impact on the economy than it once did, and adequate oversight and regulation is desperately needed. In 2008 private funds were about half of the size of the banking system, today assets in private funds are greater than the $18 trillion in the banking system. 

The SEC should also consider additional amendments to Form PF including requiring private funds to disclose their individual loans extended (as proposed in 2022 but not adopted). Such changes would create greater visibility into the $1.5 trillion private credit market, sometimes also referred to as non-bank direct lending. 

The SEC should also  move forward on rulemaking that would bring further transparency to the private markets via amendments to Rule 144A, Regulation D, and Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act. Bonds issued that are exempt from registering with the SEC (“exempt offerings”) under Rule 144A now sit at $5 trillion.

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