ICI Applauds Reintroduction of House Bill to Protect Investors and Expand Private Market Access
WASHINGTON, May 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Investment Company Institute (ICI) President and CEO Eric Pan released the following statement on the reintroduction in the US House of Representatives of legislation to protect closed-end funds (CEFs) and their investors. The Increasing Investor Opportunities Act, was cosponsored by Reps. Ann Wagner (MO-02) and Gregory Meeks (NY-05).
'This bipartisan Increasing Investor Opportunities Act would allow CEFs to invest their assets more freely in securities issued by private funds, increasing opportunities for retail investors to access private markets. The bill also would protect retail investors, including many seniors, from harmful activists that misuse closed-end funds to extract quick profits for themselves. ICI applauds Representatives Wagner and Meeks for continuing to advocate for American investors, and we look forward to seeing the legislation pass both the House and the Senate for the President's signature.'
Background:
The Increasing Investor Opportunities Act would allow a CEF to invest more assets in private market securities, expanding access for retail investors to these growing markets. It also would restrict the proportion of CEF shares that activist investors and their affiliates could acquire to no more than 10 percent, closing the loophole that activists exploit at the expense of CEFs' long-term shareholders. This restriction would prevent predatory activist investors from extracting money from CEFs by taking over the funds to force them into liquidity events or to radically change their investment strategies.
Contact: [email protected]
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SOURCE Investment Company Institute
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
‘I don't know why the president has this problem': Trump had a history of disparaging Haiti and Haitians before the travel ban
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Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
New '1984' Foreword Includes Warning About 'Problematic' Characters
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Morrissey argued that trigger warnings on literary classics serve to "distract readers at the start from its purpose with red herrings over issues of taste." But not all responses aligned with that view. Academic Rebuttal Peter Brian Rose-Barry, a philosophy professor at Saginaw Valley State University and author of George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality, disputed the entire premise. "There just isn't [a trigger warning]," he told Newsweek in an email after examining the edition. "She never accuses Orwell of thoughtcrime. She never calls for censorship or cancelling Orwell." In Rose-Barry's view, the foreword is neither invasive nor ideological, but reflective. "Perkins-Valdez suggests in her introduction that 'love and artistic beauty can act as healing forces in a totalitarian state,'" he noted. "Now, I find that deeply suspect... but I'd use this introduction to generate a discussion in my class." Taibbi and Kirn, by contrast, took issue with that exact line during the podcast. "Love heals? In 1984?" Taibbi asked. "The whole thing ends with Winston broken, saying he loves Big Brother," the symbol of the totalitarian state at the heart of the book. Kirn laughed and added, "It's the kind of revisionist uplift you get from a book club discussion after someone just watched The Handmaid's Tale." Photographs of Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file, c.1940. Photographs of Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file, c.1940. The National Archives UK Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer, Harvard graduate and professor of literature at American University, also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all." Kirn responded to that sentiment on the show by pointing out that Orwell was writing about midcentury Britain: "When Orwell wrote the book, Black people made up maybe one percent of the population. It's like expecting white characters in every Nigerian novel." Richard Keeble, former chair of the Orwell Society, argued that critiques of Orwell's treatment of race and gender have long been part of academic discourse. "Questioning Orwell's representation of Blacks in 1984 can usefully lead us to consider the evolution of his ideas on race generally," he told Newsweek. "Yet Orwell struggled throughout his life, and not with complete success, to exorcise what Edward Said called 'Orientalism.'" Keeble added, "Trigger warnings and interpretative forewords... join the rich firmament of Orwellian scholarship—being themselves open to critique and analysis." Cultural Overreach The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's 1984 has become a lightning rod in debates over alleged wokeness, censorship and the role of historical context in reading classic literature. The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's 1984 has become a lightning rod in debates over alleged wokeness, censorship and the role of historical context in reading classic literature. Newsweek / Penguin Random House While critics like Kirn view Perkins-Valdez's new foreword as a symptom of virtue signaling run amok, others see it as part of a long-standing literary dialogue. Laura Beers, a historian at American University and author of Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, acknowledged that such reactions reflect deeper political divides. But she defended the legitimacy of approaching Orwell through modern ethical and social lenses. "What makes 1984 such a great novel is that it was written to transcend a specific historical context," she told Newsweek. "Although it has frequently been appropriated by the right as a critique of 'socialism,' it was never meant to be solely a critique of Stalin's Russia." Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Courtesy American University "Rather," she added, "it was a commentary on how absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the risk to all societies, including democracies like Britain and the United States, of the unchecked concentration of power." Beers also addressed the role of interpretive material in shaping the reading experience. "Obviously, yes, in that 'interpretive forewords' give a reader an initial context in which to situate the texts that they are reading," she said. "That said, such forewords are more often a reflection on the attitudes and biases of their own time." While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy. "By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."


NBC Sports
an hour ago
- NBC Sports
Judge approves landmark college sports settlement
The corrupt system of denying payment to college athletes has officially ended. On Friday, Judge Claudia Wilken approved the settlement of multiple antitrust class-action lawsuits that challenged the longstanding refusal of the NCAA and its members to compensate athletes. The deal includes $2.8 billion in payments to players over the past 10 years along with payments to players moving forward. This hardly ends the chaos currently consuming college sports. The major conferences have launched the College Sports Commission (which is different from the presidential commission that was under consideration for like a week) to regulate NIL collectives that have in many instances become pay-for-play programs. Here's the problem. Any collective action by independent businesses that restrict the earning capacity of the athletes potentially creates a fresh antitrust problem. Friday's settlement resolves (in theory) the manner in which the schools will directly compensate players. The NIL issue is separate. And it should be open season, thanks to the American system of free enterprise. That's why the colleges want the federal government to throw them a lifeline with legislation that would include an antitrust exemption. The only truly effective solution would come from creating a nationwide union and negotiating rules regarding key issues like compensation limits and transfer rights. With that, however, the players would have the ability to secure protections against, for instance, unlimited padded practices and a year-round schedule of intense workouts that leave the players with very little time to themselves — especially relative to pro athletes. So the settlemen isn't the end. It's more like the end of the beginning, with plenty more work to be done.