The Securities and Exchange Commission just proposed new rules to protect investors in private investment funds. The proposed rules would require private fund advisers to disclose certain information and avoid certain practices. But these retail-like protections for private fund investors seem inconsistent with the long-held belief that such investors can fend for themselves. The proposed
private equity
Do Private Company M&A Intermediaries Need to Register with the SEC as Broker-Dealers?
Since 2014, many private company mergers and acquisitions intermediaries have chosen not to register as broker-dealers. That’s because a 2014 SEC no-action letter took the position that intermediaries that limited their activities to representing private companies in M&A deals were not required to register with the SEC as broker-dealers. But as a no-action letter, the…
Valuation Disconnect Leads to 2016 IPO Drought
2016 turned out to be a terrible year for IPOs, both in terms of number of deals and aggregate proceeds.
According to Renaissance Capital’s U.S. IPO Market 2016 Annual Review, only 105 companies went public on U.S. exchanges in 2016, raising only $19 billion in aggregate proceeds. The deal count of 105 IPOs was…
Weak First Quarter for U.S. Venture-Backed IPOs
The market for venture backed IPOs in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2015 was the weakest in two years, both in terms of number of deals and aggregate proceeds, according to pre-IPO institutional research firm Renaissance Capital, as well as a separate exit poll report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture…
PE Funds Could be Liable for Certain Portfolio Company Pension Obligations
Sun Capital Partners was dealt a harsh blow by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a recent decision where the court found that this private equity fund could be held liable for the pension withdrawal liability of its portfolio companies. The court essentially espoused the view of the Pension Benefit…