NEWS RELEASE: Private Equity Looting Drove J. Crew Bankruptcy
Private equity firms loaded J. Crew with debt and hid assets away from investors and creditors.
News Category: Press Releases & Statements
Polling Memo: Strong Support for Capping Interest Rates Amid Pandemic
Americans of all partisan identities, and across all regions of the United States, strongly support enacting new consumer protections on high-interest lending during the coronavirus crisis. Americans are highly supportive of prohibiting all high-interest loans during the crisis and of capping interest rates for consumer loans, according to a new bipartisan poll from Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting.
NEWS RELEASE: Decision to Block Private Equity Takeover of Dot Org a Victory for Nonprofits
Yesterday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected the proposed private equity takeover of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit that manages the non-commercial, charity, and non-profit internet domain registry for all Dot-Org websites. The decision recognized that the private equity debt loads and extractive business model would hinder Dot-Org’s ability to serve its non-profit clients without raising prices, compromising service, creating new revenue streams that comprise users’ data and privacy, or otherwise imposing unfair costs on 10 million organizations.
In The News: Trump Appointees Manipulated Agency’s Payday Lending Research, Ex-Staffer Claims (The New York Times)
Linda Jun, a senior policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform, a consumer advocacy group: “To this day, despite many people asking, they haven’t provided anything about the basis for changing this rule beyond some vague references to new research. It’s hard to see the reversal as anything other than political.”
Letter to Regulators: Fifty Organizations call for Transparency In Federal Reserve/Treasury Emergency Assistance
Note: On the afternoon this letter was sent the Federal Reserve announced it would be providing additional transparency in 13(3) facilities. See our comment linked here for earlier AFR Edcucation Fund communications with the Federal Reserve on this issue. Download a pdf of the letter here: Letter to Federal Reserve Board and Treasury Regarding 13(3)
News Release: Fed Must Set Priorities, Impose Conditions, Ensure Transparency for Coronavirus Funding
Absent major changes, the Federal Reserve’s multi-trillion-dollar funding programs will reward corporate insiders and financial speculators, without guaranteeing desperately needed help for those hardest-hit by the coronavirus crisis. The Fed needs to set the right priorities for this credit and impose conditions that ensure the benefits of this extraordinary assistance go to those who need it most.