Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB): What Is It and How Has It Changed?

You may be thinking to yourself “what is a Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB), and why may it be relevant to me?” Well, I would like to answer those two questions in the most colorful way possible: first giving you some quick notes on the history of the Act within which the definition of a QIB resides and clarifying what the changes to the definition of a QIB may mean to you and the breadth of investments that your account(s) may now hold.

Let’s turn back the clock approximately 100 years, to the “Roaring 20’s”. The 1920’s saw the birth of commercial radio, the invention of the vacuum cleaner, the electric blender, water skis and the Band-Aid. Alexander Fleming created Penicillin. In Pasadena, California, Lionel Sternberger shook up the culinary world by putting a slice of cheese on a hamburger, thereby creating the “cheeseburger”. It was a wonderful time for music as well, headlined by such talents as Fats Waller, Blind Willie Johnson, Bessie Smith and the one and only Louis Armstrong. Jazz was growing in popularity, both within the United States and abroad, as America’s entry into World War I had carried this unique brand of music overseas.

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