I’m attending the PERE CFOs & CCOs Forum. These are my notes from the session.
Operations are increasingly the difference maker in an environment of declining revenue per AUM. If we are going to be a cost center, we should be the best.
International operations takes up a disproportionate amount of time. Investing overseas has a lot of regulatory hurdles. There are some overseas markets that it is really hard to do business and meet the legal and regulatory requirements of the US. Getting overseas investors is an even bigger hurdle. Getting it right is a value-add proposition for your firm.
Most attendees rated themselves “moderate” in terms of legal/regulatory/compliance risk. A third rated themselves “ultra conservative” and small as “aggressive.”
Complexity is a cost to the bottom line to deal with those legal and regulatory burden.
Everybody in the firm is marketing firm. In a culture of compliance, you want everyone to be their own compliance officer.
Finding people to fill roles that understand the business and understand the compliance requirements is hard. Then you need really good communicators that can distill complex issues into an easy to understand package. More is not necessarily better.
There is great consternation of the unintended consequences of regulations. Private equity real estate is a tough fit for the existing SEC regulations.