Board-Ansicht
Mix-Ansicht- Der Pensionsfonds als Venture-Kapitalist - Bob, 21.12.2003, 09:42
Der Pensionsfonds als Venture-Kapitalist
-->Hallo,
das könnte einen stutzig machen: große Pensionsfonds der USA beschweren sich, daß sie von VC-Investitionen ausgeschlossen werden. Man könnte fragen: wenn selbst die traditionell konservativsten Anleger das VC Geschäft entdecken, welche Renditen sich dann dort noch verbergen mögen. Schließlich braucht man ja auch jemanden, der beim IPO noch zuschlägt...
Pension Funds Worried About VC Shutout
Sat Dec 20,12:16 PM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Dane Hamilton
NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a two-year hiatus, venture capitalists are hitting the fund-raising trail again, bringing the promise of rich returns on the back of an improving economy and a long-awaited tech-spending rebound.
Not all investors, however, will have access to this high-risk asset class, and that's what worries public pension funds keen to invest in a market upswing.
In the last year, sunshine laws and freedom of information requests have put public funds at a disadvantage -- many are now required to disclose financial data on venture funds that previously was held in strict confidence.
That has prompted some VCs to look elsewhere for money in the next fundraising round, a trend that is gaining momentum as the shift toward greater disclosure increases. The move would bar millions of pension fund beneficiaries from the rewards of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship, experts say.
"If we are shut out and looked upon as a second class, it's a big problem," said Michael Hennessy, senior investment director for the University of North Carolina endowment. Like many others in the industry, Hennessy believes that"some greater level of transparency is inevitable," despite VC efforts to fight it.
So far, Hennessy said his fund hasn't yet faced the issue of being shut out. But it's probably only a matter of time. The next round of VC fundraising is still in its early stages.
"Every other VC is thinking in the next 12 to 24 months of going out to the market to raise funds," said Warren Haber, partner in Mellon Ventures, a $1.4 billion New York private equity fund."Every three to five years, funds have to go back to the trough."
VC FUNDRAISING LOOKING UP?
Although VC fundraising hit new lows this year, with just over $1 billion raised in the 2003 first quarter, some experts are seeing an upswing. By comparison, VCs raised $107 billion in 2000 -- a record year, according to National Venture Capital Association.
"I think we will see a VC fundraising spike in the fourth quarter, to $3 billion or $4 billion," said attorney Tom Beaudoin, a private equity fundraising specialist with Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, a Boston law firm that represents Kodiak Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates and others.
Public funds are already seeing opening salvos in a fight that sets them at odds with VCs. Silicon Valley's Sequoia Capital, for instance, said it wants to dump the University of California -- a 20-year investor with $129 million in Sequoia -- after a state court order to disclose VC financial returns.
As other public pension funds are made to comply, some VCs are turning to sources with no disclosure risks -- like private pension funds, insurance companies and wealthy individuals.
"Some just don't need money from those people that have transparency issues," said veteran banker Kevin Albert, who heads Merrill Lynch & Co.'s private equity fundraising business, whose clients include Warburg Pincus, Invesco and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
VCs are especially worried over further disclosures, such as valuations and financial data from portfolio companies -- a move many feel could be even more damaging.
If such information is made public, they say, returns for asset sales, either through initial public offerings or to other companies, could slump as outsiders gain a clearer idea of actual sponsor valuations.
"It's absolutely a big issue," said Arlett Tygesen, executive director of the Institutional Limited Partners Association, a 120-member trade group representing investors managing $280 billion of private equity capital. Such disclosure"is not acceptable at this time," she said.
Some experts see VCs and public funds reaching a compromise, since many second-tier venture funds can't be as selective in funding sources as the top-performers, they say.
One approach may be for a public fund to simply use third-party firms to maintain information about their VC investments. Without in-house information, a public fund can't be forced to disclose it, the reasoning goes.
"Some GPs (VC general partners) are just saying"no" to public money, but many others cannot turn away significant forms of capital," said Jeff Ganung, director of alternative investments for Russell Investment Group."So they are finding ways to work around this issue."
UC, for instance, uses Cambridge Associates, a Boston consultancy, to advise it on venture investing. While UC has access to this information, it could adopt a strategy of not asking for it, to prevent disclosure, one UC official said.
"Some state plans at risk of disclosure are willing to get less information if it turns out they have to disclose it," said Testa, Hurwitz' Beaudoin. But, he said,"these are not issues that anyone has dealt with before."
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