The two powerful California pensions have announced huge write-downs in private equity and real estate over the fiscal year ending in March. Both pensions have implemented measures to counter the losses, including moving allocations and negotiating for lower fees.
David Hodes and Doug Weill have left the investment bank's real estate placement group to create their own firm, Hodes Weill & Associates. The pair co-founded the real estate placement agent in 2000 with Bill Thompson, who remains at Credit Suisse along with other senior management.
A United Nations initiative has drafted guidelines to help LPs ask the right questions of their GPs on the subject of environmental, social and corporate governance.
After a three month rally of around 90%, shares in the alternatives group have been downgraded by Morgan Stanley. However, the bank says Partners’ business model still makes it attractive in the long term.
Richard Levin, president of Yale University, said the investment model designed by David Swensen had performed ‘spectacularly well’ for the endowment despite a 30% decline in value in the last fiscal year, according to a Bloomberg report.
As events in the US draw the conduct of placement agents into the limelight, research conducted by PEI Media shows that many LPs find it hard to tell the genuine article from the so-called 'finders'.
The $63bn public pension’s council held discussions last week about drafting a request for proposals to hire a secondaries programme manager.
The New York-based REIT is reportedly in market with a private equity real estate fund targeting distressed retail and office properties.
The public US pension, which last reported assets valued at $16bn, decided to look for purchases on the secondaries market because ‘sellers were looking to sell high quality allocations at deep discounts’.
Prompted by the ongoing pay-to-play investigation in the US, the European trade body has created a code of conduct to prevent unethical conduct in the European placement industry.