Definition
Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB)
An institution with at least $100 million in securities, eligible to buy privately placed securities under Rule 144A.
A qualified institutional buyer is an institutional investor — an insurance company, registered investment company, pension plan, bank or registered adviser that owns and invests on a discretionary basis at least $100 million in securities of unaffiliated issuers, with a lower $10 million threshold for registered broker-dealers. QIB status exists to support Rule 144A, which permits resales of restricted securities to institutions without registration and underpins much of the institutional private debt market. For SPVs the term is mostly a boundary marker: QIB is a far higher bar than accredited investor or qualified purchaser, and single-asset venture vehicles essentially never require it. It matters when an SPV is buying into a 144A offering rather than when it is raising from LPs.