SEC Expands Retail Access to Private Markets — SkimNews
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- SEC approved proposals Wednesday to expand how individuals can qualify as accredited investors, with Chairman Paul Atkins saying exposure to private markets should "not be reserved for the wealthiest or for those deemed to be the most sophisticated."
- The SEC proposals would let registered investment advisers charge performance fees of up to 20% — comparable to hedge fund and alternatives pricing — to pull more private asset managers into the retail wealth space.
- President Trump signed an executive order last August titled 'Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors,' allowing Americans to allocate more of their retirement plans to private equity and other alternatives.
- Blue Owl Capital paused regular quarterly cash redemptions at its U.S. retail-focused Blue Owl Capital Corporation II fund in February after a surge in withdrawal requests tied to concerns over risky software debt.
- Blackstone and Apollo also received redemption requests that exceeded their funds' existing quarterly limits during the same period of retail-investor withdrawal pressure.
- Blackstone COO and President Jon Gray told CNBC in March that such quarterly limits are "really a feature, not a bug" of private credit vehicles.
Why it matters: The SEC's push opens private markets — historically reserved for institutions and the ultra-rich — to ordinary investors through RIAs and 401(k) plans, but the timing is awkward: Blue Owl, Blackstone, and Apollo all hit redemption caps, exposing the liquidity mismatch between harder-to-sell private assets and retail expectations of quick cash access.
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