More than a big deal? What GPs think worth communicating

Relationship between dealflow and marketing output

I recently wrote a short piece on GP communications and transparency that looked at quite how open private equity fund managers in Europe really are. Not as open as they could be? Definitely. Not as open as they should be? Without doubt. Well, European GPs are communicating with the market, even if some don’t welcome inbound enquiries in quite the way they might. But what are they communicating?

Well, the IE Consulting team and I read through almost 700 press releases from European buyout and growth capital investors (2006-2010) so you don’t have to. And the results of our research are summarised in an article in this month’s Private Equity Europe:

More Than a Big Deal?

I think GPs are so focussed on announcing their transactions that they are neglecting the opportunities they have to communicate everything else they – and their portfolio companies – do. But what do you think? Please let me know, below!

Life as a Limited Partner during the financial crisis – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

GPs with poor communication are losing out

Earlier this month I had the honour and pleasure to be invited onto a panel at the 6th Annual Private Equity Forum at my alma mater. The panel sought to address how LPs had been affected by the financial crisis and, not being a Limited Partner myself, I thought it prudent to ask some, beforehand. If you were one of the 60 institutional investors into private equity that responded to my questionnaire, many thanks!

In any case, and as my colleagues predicted, there was no real need to call upon the research findings during the event. But some of the findings were so intriguing that I wanted to share them with you. I hope you find them as interesting as I did.

The link below will take you to a summary of the results.

Limited Partners in a New Era – the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

People prefer performance, and that will never change, but we found that many LPs had already ditched managers that they felt had not been communicating with them sufficiently well and some found that misalignment of interests between LP and GP (shock! horror! such DO exist!) had become more apparent during the crisis.

There’s much, much more in the full report, so I hope you will take the time to dive in. If you have any questions or comments, you know where to find me!

Waste not, want not

How solid is it /
Selling gas to get liquid? /
Don’t get in a state!

Biffa is supposedly trying to transform into a company that turns waste into energy, so why sell a division that does just that? Maybe LPs need distributions…not that distributing money to LPs is necessarily a bad thing, of course!

The story at AltAssets

Of course, landfill gas collection is only a viable business as long as there are landfills producing gas. Given that landfills are increasingly unpopular with government and the general public and that collection of gas is only really viable for 20 years or so from each site, this is a pretty smart way to return some cash to invetors with out too adversely affecting the resale price of the business.

Insert your own Apax Partners fundraising gag here…

Martin Halusa, chief of Apax, chef de brigade

It’s not always good news when your private equity backers descend on your offices at short notice…and it doesn’t always bode well when the “party” includes the worldwide CEO. Of course, nothing says “this is the good kind of party” like a silly hat, and the visit was received with extremely good humour, even if Apax was demanding money…

The Apax team had brought with them a crate of sandwiches, which they were looking to flog to the excited and hungry denizens of IE Consulting towers and our cohorts at Unquote” for the benefit of Great Ormond Street Hospital and the poorly lads and lasses it serves.

Well done Apax for putting in some personal effort to raise money for such a good cause. Not so well done on the quality of the sandwiches…I’m looking forward to Bridgepoint trying the same thing…

Fairly ropey tuna sandwich made by APAX partners