Trump 401(k) paranızı özel sermayede istiyor ama 2025 'teki en büyük iflasların % 54' ü PE destekli şirketlerdi

Trump wants your 401(k) in private equity — but 54% of the biggest 2025 bankruptcies were PE-backed companies

Eric Esposito

Mon, September 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Private equity investments aren't looking pretty right now.​

Data from PitchBook showed just how much this sector is struggling, with private equity firms currently clinging to 13,500 unsold companies, thousands of which The Wall Street Journal estimates have been in portfolios for six to nine years.

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In a persistently high-interest-rate environment, more market observers fear the worst for these debt-saddled businesses. Matt Parr, communications director at the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP), explained to Moneywise that "Large private equity-driven debt loads can leave companies more vulnerable to financial distress, closures, and layoffs."

Findings in PESP's Private Equity Bankruptcy Tracker revealed just how much of a mess this sector is currently in. Of the biggest U.S. bankruptcy filings in 2025 (all with at least $1 billion in liabilities), 54% were private equity companies. Private equity firms were also in 51% of U.S. corporate bankruptcies with liabilities over $500 million.

In total, PESP noted that private equity firms took up 10% of 2025's corporate bankruptcies, even though they only make up about 7% of the U.S. economy.

Is your retirement going private?

Despite these alarming figures, President Trump is pushing for more access to private equity in retirement portfolios. In 2025, the White House issued Executive Order 14330, which focused on broadening the range of allowable investments in 401(k)s.

Alongside crypto and commodities, this order explicitly allowed for "private market investments, including direct and indirect interests in equity, debt, or other financial instruments that are not traded on public exchanges, including those where the managers of such investments, if applicable, seek to take an active role in the management of such companies."

More recently, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed a rule to make these alternative investments a reality for "more than 90 million Americans." U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer touted the potential of these opportunities, arguing, "This greater diversity will drive innovation and result in a major win for American workers, retirees, and their families."

Many market experts, however, aren't so excited about private equity deals for the general public.

Rather than providing new growth opportunities, Matt Parr cautioned that "The risks associated with the private equity business model do not disappear when these investments are packaged for retirement savers. Yet the Trump administration's proposal would give workers greater exposure to private equity investments while limiting their ability to sue plan sponsors and other fiduciaries."

Parr also told Moneywise that the PESP was particularly worried about the private equity industry's attempt to "loosen restrictions on cross-trading between funds," which could "allow firms to move assets between investment vehicles."

As Parr elaborated, "Our concern is that loosening those restrictions as private markets move into 401(k)s could create a pathway for hard-to-sell or underperforming private equity assets to be moved into funds that retirement savers are exposed to."

Besides safety and transparency concerns, there's a more practical problem with bringing private equity to retirement portfolios: Higher fees.

Morningstar analyst Jason Kephart expressed this concern over fees eating into earnings to Reuters, arguing that firms "might be even underrepresenting the actual cost to the end investor, and I have a hard time seeing how plan sponsors are going to get comfortable with that."

Read More: Vanguard reveals what's coming for U.S. stocks — and it could be bad news for this group of investors

Private equity still has an image problem

​Judging by recent bipartisan polls, many Americans probably wouldn't feel comfortable propping up private equity firms with their 401(k)s.​

A 2026 survey from Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting showed that 65% of U.S. voters across party lines want stricter guardrails for private equity firms and 51% of respondents went even further and said they think private equity firms make the things "we need for a decent life more expensive and worse."

This negative sentiment has been gaining traction in the form of proposed laws against private equity on Capitol Hill and in local legislatures. As one example, Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon introduced the Take Back Our Hospitals Act in 2026 to "effectively ban private equity ownership of hospitals and nursing homes" by barring them from Medicare funding.​

Even though it's popular to put down private equity, any disruption in this sector won't be subtle. Findings from the American Investment Council and EY show just how entrenched private equity is in American life, with an estimated 13.3 million employees.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Trump wants your 401(k) in private equity — but 54% of the biggest 2025 bankruptcies were PE-backed companies

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.