Blog

As tax reporting season winds down, the pain and difficulties in getting out K-1s is still fresh in everyone’s mind. For some fund managers, though, what was once an inefficient and laborious process has been streamlined…

Private equity

2017

The Latest Trend for Pension Funds: Private Equity Investment

When one of the largest institutional investors in the world talks openly about its investment strategy, people listen. In September the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) announced it was getting out of hedge funds, closing its Absolute Return Strategies portfolio, worth $4 billion — a sum roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of Fiji. Soon after, reports followed of other large funds in the U.S. and U.K. reviewing their own allocations to hedge funds.

2017

Better Approaches to Managing Data and Gaining Operational Efficiency

This is the final article in our three-part series about the challenge of managing “Big Data.” In our first two articles, we defined the concept of Big Data as it relates to the private equity business, explored the challenges of managing it and identified areas of efficiency gain. Here, we discuss technical solutions for addressing the Big Data challenge.

New Investor Services Make Life Easier For LPs

Doing things better and making jobs easier usually means finding ways to create order out of chaos. That’s probably what Mary Shelly, author of the classic nineteenth century gothic novel, Frankenstein, meant when she wrote, “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” These days, many limited partners investing in alternative investments find themselves in in a state of increasing chaos despite all of the powerful and sophisticated technological solutions they use to manage their investments. The roots of this dilemma lie in a few essential tasks that have stubbornly resisted automation.

Let’s Talk About Private Equity Risk – From the Bottom Up

Despite record distributions in recent quarters and investors looking to reinvest, many LPs still remain cautious over whether private equity as an asset class is too expensive, too aggressively financed or too susceptible to macroeconomic volatility as a result of liquidity limitations. It seems appropriate to discuss what these cautious fears come down to, namely risk.

How Technology Facilitates Regulatory Compliance

The global financial crisis of 2008 changed the entire world of financial services, including the alternative investment market, and precipitated the rapid expansion of regulatory initiatives. New regulations, combined with increasing reporting demands from investors, have created an environment with a strong and growing focus on transparency, as well as an equally strong interest among managers in using technology to ease their regulatory burdens.

Going Mobile in Alternative Investing

I’m not generally an early adopter when it comes to technology. I didn’t get a mobile phone until the late 1990’s, because I was ambivalent about their value. But the first iPhone floored me, and when I bought one, it changed the very nature of computing for me. Where earlier options failed to win me over, I’ve had no ambivalence at all about the value of the successive iPhones I’ve carried.

Real estate

2016

Is Green the new Black in Real Estate?

As the United States and China, the two largest carbon dioxide producing nations,[1] agree to curb their emissions, global attention refocuses on reductions in greenhouse gases. Sustainability certifications and regulations for real estate development and retrofit will play a significant role in this change. But for many real estate owners, the choice to “go green” isn’t just a moral or regulatory imperative, but a financial factor.

An alternative to the dreaded K-1 process

The Latest Trend for Pension Funds: Private Equity Investment

Better Approaches to Managing Data and Gaining Operational Efficiency

New Investor Services Make Life Easier For LPs

Let’s Talk About Private Equity Risk – From the Bottom Up

How Technology Facilitates Regulatory Compliance

Going Mobile in Alternative Investing

Is Green the new Black in Real Estate?