Mitt Romney puts his business background at the front of his campaign message. As the current front-runner for the Republican nomination, his background is going under increased scrutiny. Since his business background is in private equity, the industry should stop and wonder whether all of this publicity will be good or bad for private equity. … Read more »
Tag: Private equity
Stealing Private Equity Investment Opportunities
Private equity transactions are not outside the scope of enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC filed a case against a former principal of an investment adviser that manages private equity funds. The charge is that he “usurped …[a] lucrative investment opportunity in a private company.” At this point, the SEC has only … Read more »
Private Equity Exemption Bill Moves Ahead
The Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act, H.R. 1082, took another step forward this week when it was approved by the House Committee on Financial Services. It still has a long way to go before coming law so this is no time to stop getting your compliance infrastructure in place. The bill still … Read more »
Time for the SEC to Extend a Deadline
Dodd-Frank set a July 21 deadline for changes to the Investment Advisers Act in Title IV: The Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act. This included the expiration of the private adviser exemption from registration under the Investment Advisers Act, the addition of an new exemption for “venture capital fund advisers” and the increase in the … Read more »
Will Private Equity be Exempted from Registration?
In earlier versions of Dodd-Frank, when it was being formulated in the House committee, there was an exemption for private equity fund managers from registration under the Investment Advisers Act. It also had an exemption for venture capital fund managers. Only the venture capital exemption managed to survive. Of the many attempts to cut back … Read more »
Private Equity Portfolio Companies and Bribery Charges
The U.S. is investigating Allianz SE, for possible bribery by a German printing press company in which it holds a majority stake according to a story by Joe Palazzolo in WSJ.com’s Corruption Currents. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bars US companies from paying bribes to foreign officials to keep or obtain business. The SEC claims … Read more »
Do You Want to be Systemically Important?
The hard work has begun as federal regulators are trying to implement the provisions of Dodd-Frank. The law pushed lots of the detail out to the agencies so there are lots of unanswered questions. One of the hot button issues was what to do with financial institutions that were too big to fail. Dodd-Frank came … Read more »
Which Real Estate Fund Managers are Registered with the SEC?
After looking at whether a fund manager is an investment adviser and whether real estate is a security, I looked at the Private Equity Real Estate News list of the 30 biggest private equity real estate firms in the world (.pdf). (Disclosure: my company is on the list.) How many of them are already registered … Read more »
SEC to Consider New Rules for Fund Managers
On Friday, The Securities and Exchange Commission will be considering rules that should be of interest to private investment fund managers. It looks like we may have the first look at how the SEC will define a venture capital fund and who will fit into that new exemption to registration under the Investment Advisers Act. … Read more »
Private Equity and the Custody Rule
With the impending removal of the 15 Client Rule exemption from registration with the SEC, I was scratching my head trying to figure how to make the SEC’s new custody rule work for private equity. The SEC recently updated its guidance on custody rule compliance truing to add clarity for advisers to pooled investment vehicles. … Read more »