The Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to let business development companies invest in firms with market capitalization seems set for plain sailing. The one main potential foe, the Investment Company Institute, has decided it will not send a letter, an ICI spokesman said last week.

With the comment deadline on Jan. 2, most of those who have commented so far, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have advocated the SEC choose the most expansive of three market cap formulas the agency published for comment.

When Congress added BDCs to the Investment Company Act in 1980 the goal was to provide finance for start ups and small firms that many investors would choose to skip by offering advantages to BDCs that ordinary mutual funds do not enjoy under the law. In January 2005, ICI wrote to the SEC expressing concern that allowing BDCs to invest in market cap firms "would raise investor protection concerns in light of the special regulatory exemptions that BDCs enjoy" under ICA. The ICI spokesman did not elaborate on why the Institute was not seeking to block the market cap proposal.