Private Equity to Buy Your 401(k)

Continuing the discussion from The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues:

A recent “Lever Time” podcast on this issue:

Stranger

How long before Trumps EO requiring every 401k plan to consist of x% of crypto?

Has private equity ever NOT wrecked whatever it touched?

By x, of coure you mean 100, and a particular crypto at that, right?

I’m sure we’ll have a choice between $TRUMP and $MELANIA

At least there is no $ERIC or $DONJR memecoin (yet).

Stranger

I’ve spent many years working at the leadership level in PE holdings. Not high enough to actually be one of the PE guys, but high enough to have to give reports to the board as an employee of one of the holdings. I know exactly how they enrich themselves, and it really shouldn’t be legal.

Unless I was one of the billionaires making a big enough investment to have a real seat at the table, I would never, ever give one of those a dime of my money.

They structure the holdings such that they can manipulate payouts.

They make enough money in fees and “special dividends” that they are happy to avoid liquidity events, and I’ve seen smaller (as in, mere millionaire) investors absolutely freaking out because they can’t exit.

Finally, they just want access to 401k money to enable more and larger deals, which benefit them and tie your money up long term (as above)

And this isn’t new. They’ve been chasing the money of mini-millionaires for years.

This is a scam. They will dangle these obscene returns and take lots of unsophisticated investors for a ride.

I’m not totally sure how investments within a 401(k) work, so I’m going to ask this question:

When I was still working and had a 401(k), I was limited in my investments to what was offered through the custodian. So unless it’s a private plan, wouldn’t the custodian ultimately have the decision on whether or not to include a private equity investment as an investor investment option?

Yes. And I am sure some will and some won’t.

You can also expect an ad campaign telling people to demand access to these instruments previously only available to the ultra wealthy.

This is not a grass roots drive for access. It’s whatever it is when people in the canopy are trying to take advantage of people who do not understand how PE works.

Redacted for not enough coffee when reading the OP