AFR and SBPC Send Letter to Navient Demanding Investment in Student Borrowers, not Shareholders Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) sent a letter to the Board of Directors of Navient Corporation urging the company’s board to halt dividends and stock buybacks, pause planned compensation for itself and the company’s
AFR Education Fund and Demand Progress Education Fund sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee regarding competition in the digital marketplace. Congress and regulators should promote the tradition of separating banking and commerce, by extending that set of principles to dominant platforms, especially online marketplaces and social networks.
Together, these facilities could deploy up to $2.3 trillion in new credit to the economy during the pandemic crisis period. Without major changes these facilities will not be effective in getting assistance to those most impacted by the crisis, and disclosure and transparency regarding specific borrowers and loan terms is lacking. Our comment provides specific recommendations to address these issues.
Today, 69 community, civil rights, consumer, and student advocacy organizations sent a letter to House and Senate leadership, urging them to include student debt cancellation in the next coronavirus package. The letter also calls on leadership to extend the suspension of payments on federal student loans through March 2021, as current estimates indicate that the economy will not recover to pre-virus levels until the third quarter of 2021.
AFR joined 39 other organizations urging Congress to staff the five-member panel tasked with monitoring the corporate bailout with members who have experience with oversight and/or investigations and have proven commitment to principles of transparency and accountability.
Congress needs to resist calls from private equity executives to gain access to pandemic-related bailout programs. Private equity-owned firms are not comparable to ordinary small businesses, who cannot draw on deep-pocketed Wall Street owners who could support them if they chose to do so. Private equity (PE) funds are pooled investment funds managed by Wall Street firms that purchase operating companies. Prominent examples of private equity-owned portfolio companies include Toys ‘R Us, Shopko, and TeamHealth.
The track record of private equity funds demonstrates that these firms will wherever possible seek to divert income streams, including government support, to wealthy private equity executives rather than supporting employment and customer service at portfolio firms.