“These are not do-or-die pieces of legislation, so one of the challenges is that doing the right thing is always a lower priority than dealing with a crisis,” Palmer says. “However, it makes sense to help the middle market perform more efficiently and effectively. The banking industry still has handcuffs on and is not lending to this segment, but the demand for capital hasn’t gone away. The more efficient we can make the models that serve this part of the market, the better off the economy is at large.”

As part of its work, the Small Business Investment Association also pitches BDCs and their smaller cousins, small business investment companies, as sound investments. Palmer cites data from the National Center for the Middle Market that finds almost 60 percent of middle-market companies are growing, and around one-third plan on growing their payrolls in 2016.

“They’re higher-yielding products that seem to have a consistent yield,” Palmer says. “They represent part of the market that is not going away. There’s a lot of room for growth there.”

While Palmer isn’t worried about partisan gridlock slowing down the SBIA or BDCs, he is worried about presidential politics.

“Any American paying attention who isn’t horrified by something they’ve heard from each one of the presidential candidates is probably not paying attention,” Palmer says. “It’s a whipsaw between galling, horrifying and nauseating. There’s nothing targeted at BDCs, but there’s a lot of troubling economic policy being bandied about; whether it be demonizing anyone involved in finance, raising capital gains taxes or removing the deductibility of interest for small business, there’s a laundry list of bad ideas out there.”

 

First « 1 2 3 » Next