Dan Primack

Dixon Doll: Plagiarist? [Update: It Was The Ghostwriter]

Updated after jump On January 4, Peter Hebert of Lux Capital wrote a guest piece for us titled Ten VC Predictions for 2010: Outrunning The Bear. Yesterday, venture capital icon Dixon Doll sent out an email on behalf of conference organizer IBF, for an upcoming event. Unfortunately, Doll’s letter included a pair of passages lifted verbatim from Hebert’s post without attribution. The following appeared in both (without any syllabic difference): After years of intrigue and speculation, not to mention tens to several hundred million dollars invested, several energy technology companies finally lift the curtain and introduce themselves to the world. As weak fund performance from the lost decade finally forces LPs to question historic allocations to "franchise funds. I don’t know if Doll wrote this himself, or if someone at IBF wrote it and he just pulled out his rubber

Notes on the Pantheon Ventures Acquisition

Top news story this morning is that Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE: AMG) has agreed to buy fund-of-funds and secondary fund manager Pantheon Ventures for around $775 million in cash from Russell Investments (a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual Life). For the uninitiated, Pantheon currently has around $22 billion in assets under management, including a particularly high level of dry powder. AGM has done five acquisitions in the past seven months, but this is the largest. I talked to a bunch of folks this morning about the deal, including AMG CEO Sean Healey and Pantheon managing director Susan McAndrews. A few notes after the jump...

Where Should We Hold The Next peHUB Shindig?

Last week, more than 400 New York readers attended our first peHUB Shindig of 2010. Now we want you to help us decide where to go next. Below are ten cities we're considering for the next peHUB Shindig. Our plan is to follow your wishes, so long as we're able to secure sponsors (to pay for the open bar, etc.). You also can add alternate suggestions in the comment section (we've recently done them in NYC, Chicago and Dallas -- but plan to return to each later in the year). Vote after the jump...

Invision Capital Raising Debut Fund

New Fund Performance Data from UTIMCO

A large number of public pension funds now report fund-by-fund private equity performance (if you ask nicely), but they also report on a lag. The CalSTRS website, for example, only reports data through the end of March 2009. CalPERS does one quarter better, while Mass PRIM only releases 12/31 data – which means we won’t see those numbers until May or June. Oregon and Washington are among the best, with their websites currently showing data through the end of Q3 2009. But Oregon and Washington are not the gold standard. That would be the University of Texas Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO), which seems to operate on one of those calendars that begins being sold around Halloween. You know, the ones with November, December and then all of next year… Yesterday I asked UTIMCO for its most current PE performance data, and it sent a file that includes numbers through the end of November 2009. That makes it the most current sheet out there, and I’ve posted it after the jump. I’ve also posted UTIMCO’s performance data through November 2008, for the sake of comparison.

Illinois TRS Gets "Bold" About Bribery

Last month, the Teachers' Retirement System of Illinois issued an RFP to handle legal work related to the system's private market investments. Like other Illinois TRS requests for proposal, it included the following line: Any attempt by a proposer to initiate contact with TRS staff or TRS Trustees, other than as specifically provided in this RFP, may disqualify the proposer from further consideration. Unlike other system RFPs, however, this request put the warning in bold (see bottom of page 8). Seems to be something Illinois TRS believes the private markets need made particularly clear...

It's Official: Markstone Settles with Cuomo

Last week, we noted an Israeli press report that Markstone Capital Partners was near a settlement with New York AG Andrew Cuomo, over its role in the state's pay-for-play scandal. Cuomo's office declined to comment at the time, but today announced that the report was legit. Israel-focused Markstone will pay back $18 million in fees related to a $250 million investment from the New York State Common Retirement Fund into Markstone's debut fund. It also has signed Cuomo's "code of conduct," which basically promises not to use placement agents for future fundraising efforts in the U.S. Not sure how much that last part matters, considering that: (A) I really can't imagine Markstone raising another fund, and (B) If Markstone does try to raise, it could focus on investors in Israel, where the code of conduct has no legal bearing.

Wharton PE Conference Notebooks

Neither Erin nor I could make it down to the annual Wharton Private Equity Conference last Friday, so a group of first-year Wharton MBAs offered to take notes and report back. Get some thoughts from the conference organizers, thoughts on keynotes by John Megrue (Apax) and Dalip Pathak, notes on a panel about the future of private equity and notes from a pair of venture capital panels. Big thanks to Rohan Deuskar, Daniela Stefovska and Carmen Feliciano.

Bain Capital Ventures Raises Fund, Hires Operating Partner

Bain Capital Ventures has quietly closed its fourth fund with $525 million in capital commitments. The Boston-based firm also has hired John Connolly, former CEO of Institutional Shareholder Services, as an operating partner focused on portfolio company management. A few notes: Fund: This vehicle comes in a bit larger than its $500 million predecessor (raised in 2007), but below the $750 million cap that BCV had listed in a regulatory filing last February. Unclear if BCV aimed for $750m and failed, or reevaluated due to: (a) The hellish fundraising environment, and (b) A realization that the current VC market has better early-stage opportunities than later-stage ones (BCV is stage-agnostic).

10 Years of Vicissitudes: A Review of China's VC Sector by Size

Zero2IPO, a research company focused on the Chinese IPO market, has released a new white paper called: Ten Years of Vicissitudes: A Review of China’s VC Sector by Size. It's authored by Qian Yang. Download it here.