WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Five U.S. senators slammed a government report that raised red flags about risks posed by asset management firms in a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that was dated Thursday.
The bipartisan group said the September study mischaracterized the asset management industry and in some places relied on faulty information, and that the report could threaten the credibility of the Treasury Department unit that published it.
The Office of Financial Research (OFR), which was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, said in the report that asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity could pose a systemic threat to markets by borrowing to boost returns or all crowding into the same assets at once.