Private Equity Vultures Eye Real Estate During Coronavirus Crisis

Now, with 26 million workers unemployed and countless businesses closing indefinitely, private equity firms are salivating at the potential business opportunities that might arise from the expected economic fallout. Unless we take immediate action to prevent it, private equity firms will take advantage of this unprecedented crisis to make even greater asset grabs.

“Coronavirus distress is the ‘opportunity of the century’ for real estate investors,” according to a recent headline in The Real Deal, a New York real estate news publication. The article quotes Meridian Capital Group’s David Schechtman saying “But I will tell you, real-estate investors — when you take the emotion out of it — many of them have been waiting for this for a decade.”

Blog Post: Wall Street’s Secret Pet Profiteering

More and more as we go about our lives, the money we spend is siphoned off to enrich Wall Street firms. Private equity’s pet profiteering is just one way these investors have taken over so much of the economy and our daily lives.

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.