June 2011 Issue

With firms hustling to designate or hire a chief compliance officer to satisfy their duties as registered investment advisors with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, PEM speaks to Grant Thornton’s Michael Patanella about the pros and cons of outsourcing the CCO role.

Private equity managers last month received long awaited guidance on how they should value assets. Managers caught a break as they are not being required to provide quantitative sensitivity disclosures.

Europe’s private equity trade association is launching a transparency initiative to shed greater light on the industry’s activity and concerns.

Most private equity investors are finding it difficult to implement a formal fact-checking procedure for a fund manager’s fair valuation report, according to a Northern Trust survey.

Charles Miller has joined Blue Wolf Capital Partners from Washington, DC-based law firm Patton Boggs.

Teams at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice are looking carefully at companies alleged to have violated anti-corruption laws, according to Kroll.

The New Mexico State Investment Council has filed state and federal lawsuits against Saul Meyer, Gary Bland, and Daniel Hevesi, among others, for steering investments to particular managers.

The US regulator plans on raising the net worth required of an investor in order for advisors to charge performance fees.

The state-backed development group will have to strike a new balance between attracting top-tier talent and keeping pay in line with its mandate as an investor in impoverished regions.

UK tax authorities have made it easier for offshore private equity investors to preserve returns as capital gains after once fearing an income tax rate treatment.  

A recent Rothstein Kass survey found private equity managers were expecting to spend more on compliance functions and were facing pressure on favourable terms

While performance-based carried interest will be paid out to even the worst-performing funds which invested in the run-up to the industry's golden era, those raised during the boom may fail to pay any carry at all, new research shows.

The EU council will formally adopt the long-awaited funds directive later this month PEM has learned, kick-starting a process which will lead to its entering into force likely in June.

Many otherwise tight-lipped US private equity firms have been compelled by the SEC to issue ‘brochures’ about their businesses. David Snow compares three ‘Form ADV Part 2’ disclosures to see how much is actually revealed