Private Equity
Deutsche Bank's alternative asset management business RREEF bought a 'significant minority' stake in Aldus in 2007, at a time when Aldus founding partner Saul Meyer considered backing out of an arrangement in which his firm was allegedly paying illegal kick-back fees.
2 min read · 05 January 2013
As a kick-back scandal involving several public pensions grows in the US, LACERS is the latest pension to draft a disclosure policy for placement agents and other third-party marketers.
3 min read · 05 January 2013
New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has indicted Saul Meyer for allegedly making illegal payments to Henry Morris in exchange for business with the $122bn New York State Common Retirement Fund. Cuomo said he will soon pursue other 'manifestations' of corruption in the US public pension investment market.
5 min read · 05 January 2013
New Mexico State Investment Council may place on hold $60m in commitments to funds being raised by Landmark and New Stone Capital as it investigates finder’s fees paid by private equity advisor Aldus Equity, which the endowment suspended following the emergence of an alleged New York State Common Retirement Fund pay-to-play scheme.
3 min read · 05 January 2013
Cobalt, which is backed by Riverstone, Goldman Sachs and First Reserve, has tied up with Sonangol, the national oil company of Angola, to let the oil and gas exploration firm access Africa's third largest oil producing nation.
2 min read · 05 January 2013
The pension, with assets of $16bn as of 30 June, 2008, made commitments in the past month to firms including Germany-based Triton Advisors and mezzanine firm Falcon Investment Advisors.
2 min read · 05 January 2013
The state’s comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, has banned the use of placement agents in investments with the $122bn pension, and has launched a review of pension investments with firms involved in the New York Common kick-back scandal. The Carlyle Group has agreed to stop using placement agents in connection with public pension funds.
4 min read · 05 January 2013
The $165bn pension, the largest in the US, has narrowed its candidate list for private equity consultant to four – Aldus Equity, Ennis Knupp, Brock Capital and Pension Consulting Alliance. The pension’s staff will choose two of the four firms to move into the final phase of the selection process.
2 min read · 05 January 2013
The $11.5bn New Mexico State Investment Council has temporarily suspended Aldus as it reviews its advisory work and is investigating whether any of its other consultants or GPs have links with third-party marketing firms. SIC has already discovered that Carlyle and Quadrangle used a company affiliated with the New York Common scandal to secure money from the state oil and gas endowment.
4 min read · 05 January 2013
William Thompson, the comptroller for New York City, is investigating whether Quadrangle Group ‘intentionally misled or deceived’ city pensions by withholding payments of finder’s fees to a company controlled by Henry Morris, who has been indicted in New York State’s $122bn pension kick-back scandal.
2 min read · 05 January 2013
