Private equity wants to get into your 401(k). Trump might let them.

[marmar]

Private equity wants to get into your 401(k). Trump might let them.
The industry has every reason to expect help from this White House.

June 28, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT
By Helaine Olen, managing editor at the American Economic Liberties Project


(MSNBC) The private equity industry wants to get into your 401(k). The industry is lobbying the Trump administration to issue an executive order that would open the way for retirement plans to add private equity investments. The effort brings to mind Groucho Marx’s famous observation, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” Why would this supposedly elite investment class want the Trump administration to make it easier for small-time savers to invest in their offerings?

The answer, as you might suspect, is nothing good.

Before I proceed further, some explanations are in order. Private equity consists of companies and other investments controlled by private firms, which are almost always acquired with significant amounts of debt — hence the term “leveraged buyout.” The stated idea is to buy a company, overhaul its underlying finances, and then sell it again within a few years at a profit.

The private equity industry boomed following the 2008 financial crisis, when consistently low interest rates facilitated mergers and acquisitions. While the industry blamed then-Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and the Biden administration’s tougher antitrust enforcement for the end of the M&A boom, the real culprit was the return of high interest rates and private equity shops overvaluing their holdings. Unable to sell many of their holdings at the price they would like, and short of traditional institutional investors in their funds, where can private equity turn? I’m afraid that this is where you enter the picture. ........................(more)

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/private-equity-401k-retirement-trump-administration-rcna215601

[in2herbs]

1. Yet there continues to be investors who believe that their 401k's are safe from this regime. nt

[Silent Type]

2. As long as people select the investments in their 401K, let them get into whatever they want-- PE, trump crap, etc.

Social Security needs to remain as it is, though.