Open, for business… Private equity firms and transparency

As promised, I’ve uploaded a pdf of the first article on IE Consulting’s new research into the way that GPs are communicating and how open they are to inbound communication. You can access it below:

This first installment looks at some of the absolute basics of open communication: How easy is it for an interested party (press, Limited Partner, intermediary, etc) to find contact details for individuals within the firm.
Sorry I couldn’t get it to embed properly!
“Open, for business?” full article on docstoc.com
The next piece in Private Equity Europe will lok at the thematic content of prtess releases from buyout investors in Europe since January 2006. And there will be more in the coming weeks, so watch this space…

How transparent are private equity fund managers really? What do you think?

Private equity fund managers have been under pressure in recent years to improve both the reporting they undertake to their institutional investors and the transparency with which they operate, in general. Government, regulators, the press, Limited Partners: they all want to know more about the activites of GPs. My colleagues and I at IE Consulting have spent some time looking at the press releases of the most active General Partners in Europe.

We looked at:

• The access provided to dealmakers and communications staff through their websites
• The thematic content of all press releases issued since January 2006
• The quantitative and qualitative content of all press releases pertaining to buyout investments issued in the last 12 months

Some of the results were surprising, some disappointing, some encouraging, and some downright astonishing.

The results will be published in Private Equity Europe and the first installment is out at the end of this week.

Of course, I’ll be uploading the information here, too!

In the meantime, I’m interested in your thoughts:

Should private equity firms be more transparent?
If so, are they trying hard enough?
And how successful are they being?

Perhaps you work at a GP in a marketing or communications or PR role or you are a journalist, regulator or LP. Either way, I am sure you have some interesting thoughts on this. Let me know in the comments!