Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and 12 other signers submitted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission reiterating the need for the SEC to finalize a strong set of rules to better protect investors in private funds, which include hedge funds and private equity.
“They will say, ‘we have a good control on our risk,’ but you generate these returns somehow — these higher returns,” said Andrew Park, a senior policy analyst at the advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform. “There is no free lunch on that.”
The banking crisis of 2023, an event appearing on few bingo cards, has thrown a harsh light on the urgency of managing the multitude of crises that the world now faces – climate change being the most existential of them. Factor in the vexing problem that economists have repeatedly underestimated the economic impacts of climate change and we have a straightforward case for proactively hardening the financial system against its effects.
AFR led a coalition letter to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee ahead of their hearing titled “Holding Executives Accountable for Recent Bank Failures.” The letter calls for mandatory clawbacks of incentive-based executive compensation and gains from stock trades in cases of bank failure.
AFREF submitted a comment to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on their proposed rule to require the disclosure of important information regarding the ownership and control of nursing facilities, including when an owning or managing entity is a private equity (PE) company or a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).
Private equity and healthcare are incompatible and AFREF states in the letter that the current lack of transparency in ownership of facilities exacerbates the problem and shields owners and investors from accountability for the performance of the businesses they own and welcomes the disclosure rule.
AFREF joined a comment letter that strongly supports the CFPB’s proposed safe harbor of $8 for credit card late fees. The CFPB provided ample evidence that this amount is fair, reasonable, and proportional to the costs incurred by issuers for late payments.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today finalized a plan to bring long-overdue transparency to the practice of companies buying back their own stock. However, the final rule weakened key aspects of the initial proposal.
Washington, D.C. – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today finalized a plan to require private funds, which include hedge funds and private equity firms, to disclose more information about their investments to the SEC.
Washington, D.C. – The sale of First Republic Bank to JPMorgan Chase this weekend has highlighted the urgency of strengthening guardrails around Wall Street megabanks while also laying the groundwork for a longer-term effort to reduce concentration in the banking sector.
Washington, D.C. – The report by the Federal Reserve on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank only highlights the need for federal regulators to tighten oversight of banks as soon as possible to both remedy the errors of the past, and to forestall further financial contagion. At the same time, a fully independent probe of the Fed’s actions, including its leadership, remains vital.