Stephen Minar, Managing Director and Head of closed-end funds at BlackRock, discusses how discounts drive money flows into closed-end funds, but they also attract activist investors whose actions may be harmful to long-term individual investors. BlackRock has created some initiatives in a series of new funds that can reduce discounts — making a fund less likely to attract activist investors — while increasing consistency in distributions, hoping to make the issues more useful and enticing for investors and investment advisors.