(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has reached an agreement with Vanguard that will strengthen the rules under which the investment management giant can acquire large stakes in large U.S. financial institutions, according to an agreement published by the watchdog on Friday.
The agreement gives the FDIC greater ability to monitor Vanguard’s investment activities and clarifies what is permitted as a passive investor in banks supervised by the FDIC. Its goal was to ensure that the largest asset managers, including Vanguard and BlackRock, did not influence the trading decisions of the largest U.S. banks even as they acquired large stakes via indexed or passive mutual funds.
In a press release announcing the agreement with Vanguard, FDIC Director Jonathan McKernan said academic critics have raised concerns about the competitive risks of concentrated ownership and the concentration of power in a handful of institutional investors.
McKernan said the agreement should allow banking regulators to address these concerns.
According to the deal, Vanguard is strictly prohibited from engaging in activities that affect the management or policies of institutions regulated by the FDIC, or its affiliates. Vanguard said this is consistent with its current practices.
“Vanguard is built on passive investing and has long been committed to working constructively with policymakers to ensure passive investing means passive investing,” a Vanguard spokesperson said.
Through “negative covenants,” investors commit to regulators that they will not exercise influence over the banks in which they have stakes.
The FDIC will monitor Vanguard’s investment activities, especially any informal interactions that Vanguard has with management of FDIC-regulated banks.
A similar agreement reached with BlackRock was not disclosed. BlackRock could not immediately be reached for comment. The FDIC did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
(Reporting by Prakhar Srivastava in Bengaluru and Susan McGee; Editing by Shinjini Ganguly and Megan Davies)
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