Tag: private equity

Bizarre Valedictory Interview by CalSTRS Investment Chief, Chris Ailman, Asks Private Equity to Be Nice and Share with Workers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/02/bizarre-valedictory-interview-by-calstrs-investment-chief-chris-ailman-asks-private-equity-to-be-nice-and-share-with-workers.html

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The Financial Times made its interview with departing CalSTRS’ Chief Investment Officer Chris Ailman its lead story yesterday: Private equity should share more wealth with workers, says US pension giant. The Financial Times was too polite to say so, but Ailman could lay claim to being the best large public pension fund chief investment officer. CalSTRS, which manages the pensions of California teachers, is in the same general size league as its Sacramento sister CalPERS, and regularly outperforms CalPERS by a meaningful margin.

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It’s hard to know where to begin with this. Limited partners like CalSTRS, who are, in Wall Street parlance, the money, have not even been able to get basic disclosures from the general partners like how much in total the private equity firms hoover out in fees and expenses, despite many years of pleading. Mind you, it’s a requirement for a fiduciary to evaluate the costs and risks of any investment, yet these investors have accepted this abuse.

Limited partners don’t get P&Ls of portfolio companies. They don’t get independent valuations even though that is considered to be essential for every other type of investment. So it’s ludicrous to think that general partners will share money with one of the very weakest parties in the picture, mere workers, when they won’t give information to the limited partners.

Someone new to this topic might wonder why limited partners don’t say “no”. The reason is they perceive private equity to be necessary for them to earn enough to reduce their level of underfunding, which in the public pension fund world is typically pretty bad. To make up for the shortfalls, pension funds like CalPERS and CalSTRS have also been increasing the amount they charge to cities, counties, and other local government entities. These pension costs are taking up larger and larger proportions of these budgets, creating concern and anger.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 16 Feb 2024

Publication Site: naked capitalism

State legislators: Oregon treasury’s investment choices create risk to us all

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.portlandtribune.com/opinion/state-legislators-oregon-treasury-s-investment-choices-create-risk-to-us-all/article_65cae490-406b-11ee-a841-a3bbfbc99a7f.html

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The Oregon Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) pension fund has been in the national spotlight recently because of risks from private investments hidden from the public. What risks? Risk to public employees’ retirement, risk to taxpayers who have to pick up the shortfall, risk to workers as private equity asset managers rake in huge profits at Oregonians’ expense, risk to all Oregonians as private equity undermines our communities, and risk to the climate as private equity firms are uniquely exposed to fossil fuel companies.

A recent article in the business section of The New York Times, “The Risks Hidden in Public Pension Funds,” focuses on the Oregon treasury’s unusually large private investments in PERS. The treasury has long hailed its private equity investments for producing high rates of return, overlooking warning signs that the managers report earnings that turn out to be overstated. The Times reported, “they aren’t taking account of the true risks embedded in private equity. Oregon’s pension fund is over 40% more volatile than its own reported statistics show.”

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Divest Oregon’s 2022 report, “Oregon Treasury’s Private Investment Transparency Problem,” documents that more than 50% of PERS is in private investments, with various labels (“private equity,” “alternatives,” “opportunity,” even real estate).

These private funds are heavily invested in coal, oil and gas. The treasury increased its investments in fossil fuels in private investments from 2021 to 2022 (the most recent data released by the state) and continues to invest billions in the fossil fuel industry in 2023, for example in the private investment firm GNP. While Divest Oregon applauds Treasurer Tobias Read in his work to create a “decarbonization plan” for PERS, the treasurer must respond to calls to stop new private investments that fund the climate crisis.

Author(s): State Sen. Jeff Golden and state Reps. Khanh Pham and Mark Gamba

Publication Date: 29 Aug 2023

Publication Site: Portland Tribune

Why Municipal Pensions Should Kick-Start an Innovation Fund

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.governing.com/finance/why-municipal-pensions-should-kick-start-an-innovation-fund?utm_campaign=Newsletter%20-%20GOV%20-%20Daily&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=266390798&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9XCnmkpBsz7qeaom3Wd8LYY7HJUvGw_23wYI3K2k_OJd4ifQ6BmeoSGQSkdqdPtxzuK5YefHRPo_EMn8DeMV66jxxg-vECbMbX4zn0u7Ma9C6-9B4&utm_content=266390798&utm_source=hs_email

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Most of the media coverage of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was focused on the long lines of depositors who feared losing their money and the eventual bailout by the FDIC. The sequel to that story is that the failure of that bank and several others left a gaping void in the nation’s entrepreneurial economy — the place where new jobs spring out of the innovators’ alchemy of novel technologies, management skill and risk capital.

As a result, many early-stage growth companies in America are now stranded in a financing no man’s land between the highest-risk seed capital stage funded by individual angel investors and the multibillion-dollar private equity sector that still looks for eight- and nine-figure deals featuring companies already making sales on their way to a stock exchange listing. The startups’ cash cliff has been cited as the cause of a “mass extinction event” — a dead cylinder in the U.S. economy’s growth engine.

That’s where the idea of an “innovation fund” partnering with a dozen or so midsize local government pension funds could fill the void in this still-risky growth stage. Pension trustees could harvest lush investment returns on a nationally diversified portfolio with lower fees than the venture capital industry typically exploits. As a bonus, they could collectively fuel the engines of economic growth nationwide. Emergent businesses based in a state where a pension fund participates would have a fair shot at some of that capital if they could pass stringent due diligence reviews and fiduciary governance oversight by angel investment experts in their industries.

It’s a concept that originated years ago from the now-retired founder of one of the nation’s most prominent pension consulting firms. Today, the drawback on his original vision is that the larger public pension funds have outgrown the startup economy. As the chief investment officer of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the nation’s second-largest public pension fund, recently noted in a TV interview, they manage so many billions in each asset class, and with so many rules, requirements and restrictions, that it’s difficult for them to effectively put money into the venture capital marketplace. And even then, it’s got to be the chunkier, later-stage money earning a lower return than angel investors are seeking. Accordingly, my proposals here are a second-generation revision for which I alone am accountable.

What’s missing today is early-stage Series A and B funding. Putting money into promising firms raising $5 million to $20 million of fresh capital in these transition stages following their angel funding round would never move the dial on the Goliath pension portfolios’ investment returns. For their trustees and staffs, it’s just not worth the effort and headaches of monitoring hundreds of pubescent companies that are too young for them.

Author(s): Girard Miller

Publication Date: 11 July 2023

Publication Site: Governing

State Pensioners Can Learn Lots From Rhode Island And Ohio Teachers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://pensionwarriorsdwardsiedle.substack.com/p/state-pensioners-can-learn-lots-from

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Finally, and most important, this month there is an election for one active, or contributing member seat on the STRS board—the outcome of which will be determined in early May. If the reform coalition candidate wins this seat, it’s likely control of the board will shift. Then the concerns of the state auditor and reform-minded members will be addressed regarding the need to restore transparency, lower investment fees paid to Wall Street, improve investment performance and move toward restoring benefits previously promised. If so, STRS Ohio’s participant-driven reforms may serve as a template for all of the nation’s public pensions. (On the other hand, if our request for public records is granted by the Ohio Supreme Court later this year—and court-ordered transparency ensues—there may be little need for board action because any mismanagement or wrongdoing will have been exposed to the public.)

But here’s the big picture: Since all public pensions in America have moved like a herd, pouring over $1 trillion into many of the same high-cost, high-risk secretive alternative investments, if any single state pension—such as Rhode Island, or Ohio STRS—restores full transparency and releases alternative investment information to the public revealing widespread industry abuses and violations of law, all participants in public pensions which have also invested in these funds, as well as taxpayers, will benefit. One obscure pension fund board vote in Ohio could ultimately force the transparency and accountability Wall Street has successfully resisted for decades.

Author(s): Edward Siedle

Publication Date: 11 April 2023

Publication Site: Pension Warriors on substack

What You Can Do To Force Your State Pension To Be Transparent About Its Investments

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://pensionwarriorsdwardsiedle.substack.com/p/what-you-can-do-to-force-your-state

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So what can you do to force your state or local government pension to be more transparent? That’s a question I asked Marc Dann, an attorney in private practice in Ohio and the former Attorney General of Ohio. (Dann is currently litigating a public records request on my behalf against the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.)

Say attorney Dann: “Refer to your state’s public records laws in making a request. Be as detailed and specific in the request as you can possibly be. Remember public records are only those records that may actually exist. For example, instead of asking for a list of all hedge, private equity or venture capital fund investments, ask for a prospectus, offering documents or reports provided to the pension by each investment fund (and name the investment funds—which are generally named on the state or local pension’s website).  Most states allow legal fee-shifting in public records lawsuits. So if the pension or fund resists, you may wish to consider bringing in a lawyer who agrees to be paid his fee from any recovery from the pension. Don’t forget to reach out to allied members of your state legislature or city council who can put pressure on the pensions to properly respond to the requests.”

Author(s): Edward Siedle

Publication Date: 22 Mar 2023

Publication Site: Pension Warriors on substack

How an insurer in Iowa became the most coveted asset on Wall Street

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ft.com/content/b4261b75-f0cd-4d23-9253-8c392a5e0ba9

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American Equity Investment Life last week rebuffed an unsolicited $4bn offer from a rival controlled by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, capping a tumultuous year during which Bhalla also antagonised his company’s largest shareholder, Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management.

Underpinning the boardroom drama is Bhalla’s determination to keep AEL, one of the few independent annuities operators left, out of the wave of consolidation sweeping through the industry as private equity groups hoover up insurance assets.

The bad blood between Bhalla and Brookfield is a product of a deal that AEL entered into in November with start-up fund manager 26North, founded by the former longtime Apollo Global executive Josh Harris.

Bhalla had first turned to Brookfield in 2020 as it sought a white knight to fend off an earlier hostile bid from Apollo, where Harris worked at the time. Now with the Elliott bid out in the open, AEL and its $70bn of assets are in the crosshairs as a clutch of Wall Street investment titans circle the company.

Apollo, Brookfield, KKR, Carlyle Group, Ares and Sixth Street are among the many groups that could be bidders in a potentially frenzied auction next year.

Author(s): Sujeet Indap and Mark Vandevelde

Publication Date: 29 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Financial Times

ER Doctors Call Private Equity Staffing Practices Illegal and Seek to Ban Them

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://khn.org/news/article/er-doctors-call-private-equity-staffing-practices-illegal-and-seek-to-ban-them/

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A group of emergency physicians and consumer advocates in multiple states are pushing for stiffer enforcement of decades-old statutes that prohibit the ownership of medical practices by corporations not owned by licensed doctors.

Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia have rules on their books against the so-called corporate practice of medicine. But over the years, critics say, companies have successfully sidestepped bans on owning medical practices by buying or establishing local staffing groups that are nominally owned by doctors and restricting the physicians’ authority so they have no direct control.

These laws and regulations, which started appearing nearly a century ago, were meant to fight the commercialization of medicine, maintain the independence and authority of physicians, and prioritize the doctor-patient relationship over the interests of investors and shareholders.

Those campaigning for stiffer enforcement of the laws say that physician-staffing firms owned by private equity investors are the most egregious offenders. Private equity-backed staffing companies manage a quarter of the nation’s emergency rooms, according to a Raleigh, North Carolina-based doctor who runs a job site for ER physicians. The two largest are Nashville, Tennessee-based Envision Healthcare, owned by investment giant KKR & Co., and Knoxville, Tennessee-based TeamHealth, owned by Blackstone.

Author(s): Bernard J. Wolfson

Publication Date: 22 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News, California HEalthline

People Will Pay for Illiquidity

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-01/people-will-pay-for-illiquidity

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Adding liquidity is, conventionally, desirable. It reduces risk: If you can sell a thing easily, that makes it less risky to buy it, so you are more likely to commit capital to the thing. It increases demand: If only a few rich people can buy a thing with great difficulty, it will probably have a lower price than if everyone can buy a share of it easily. It improves transparency and makes prices more efficient. Also, financial innovation tends to be done by banks and other financial intermediaries, and their goal is pretty much to do more intermediation. More liquidity means more trading, which means more profits for banks.

Another, funnier sort of financial innovation is about subtracting liquidity. If you can buy and sell something whenever you want at a clearly observable market price, that is efficient, sure, but it can also be annoying.

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Or we have talked about a fun post from Cliff Asness titled “ The Illiquidity Discount,” in which he argues that private equity is essentially in the business of selling illiquidity. If you are a big institution and you buy stocks in public companies, the stocks might go down, and you will be sad for various reasons. You might be tempted to sell at the wrong time. You will have to report your results to your stakeholders, and if the stocks went down those results will be bad and you will get yelled at or fired. Whereas if you put your money in a private equity fund, it will buy whole public companies and take them private, and then you won’t know what the stock price is and won’t be able to sell. The private equity fund will send you periodic reports about the values of your investments, but those values won’t necessarily move that much with public-market stock prices: The fund will base its valuations on its estimates of long-term cash flows, and those will not change from day to day. By being illiquid, the private equity fund can look less volatile. Getting similar returns with less volatility is good; getting similar returns and feeling like you have less volatility also might be good.[4] Asness writes:

If people get that PE is truly volatile but you just don’t see it, what’s all the excitement about? Well, big time multi-year illiquidity and its oft-accompanying pricing opacity may actually be a feature not a bug! Liquid, accurately priced investments let you know precisely how volatile they are and they smack you in the face with it. What if many investors actually realize that this accurate and timely information will make them worse investors as they’ll use that liquidity to panic and redeem at the worst times? What if illiquid, very infrequently and inaccurately priced investments made them better investors as essentially it allows them to ignore such investments given low measured volatility and very modest paper drawdowns? “Ignore” in this case equals “stick with through harrowing times when you might sell if you had to face up to the full losses.” What if investors are simply smart enough to know that they can take on a lot more risk (true long-term risk) if it’s simply not shoved in their face every day (or multi-year period!)? 

One objection to this sort of financial product — illiquidity provision — is that it does not generate a lot of transactions. If you work at a bank and you think of a product that will cause customers to trade bonds or houses or diamonds more often, then it is pretty easy to figure out how to make money from that product. 

Author(s): Matt Levine

Publication Date: 1 Nov 2022

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Why private equity sees life and annuities as an enticing form of permanent capital

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/private-equity-and-principal-investors/our-insights/why-private-equity-sees-life-and-annuities-as-an-enticing-form-of-permanent-capital

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Once they’ve acquired a book, firms can turn their attention to driving value. Building on our guidelines for closed-book value creation, owners have six levers that can collectively improve ROE by up to four to seven percentage points (exhibit):

  • Investment performance: optimization of the SAA and delivery of alpha within the SAA
  • Capital efficiency: optimization of balance-sheet exposures—for example, active management of duration gaps
  • Operations/IT improvement: reduction of operational costs through simplification and modernization
  • Technical excellence: improvement of profitability through price adjustments, such as reduced surplus sharing
  • Commercial uplift: cross-selling and upselling higher-margin products
  • Franchise growth: acquiring new blocks or new distribution channels

Most PE firms view the first lever, investment performance, as the main way to create value for the insurer, as well as for themselves. This lever will grow in importance if yields and spreads continue to decline. Leading firms typically have deep skills in core investment-management areas, such as strategic asset allocation, asset/liability management, risk management, and reporting, as well as access to leading investment teams that have delivered alpha.

Capital efficiency is also well-trod ground, and for private insurers it presents a greater opportunity given their different treatment under generally accepted accounting principles, (GAAP), enabling them to apply a longer-term lens and reduce the cost of hedging. However, most firms have yet to explore the other levers—operations and IT improvement, technical excellence, commercial uplift, and franchise growth—at scale. Across all these levers, advanced analytics can enable innovative, value-creating approaches.

Author(s): Ramnath Balasubramanian, Alex D’Amico, Rajiv Dattani, and Diego Mattone

Publication Date: 2 February 2022

Publication Site: McKinsey

Beware of Private Equity Gobbling Up Life Insurance and Annuity Companies

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://cepr.net/report/beware-of-private-equity-gobbling-up-life-insurance-and-annuity-companies/

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Private equity (PE) firms have had their eye on individual retirement savings since 2013 when they were first allowed to market directly to individuals. Pension funds already allocate workers’ retirement savings to PE firms, which use these assets to fund a range of risky equity and debt investments. Access to personal retirement savings, including IRAs and 401(k)s, would open up a huge new source of capital for PE.

PE firms’ first attempts to get a piece of these very sizable direct contribution assets were largely unsuccessful. More recently, however, they have turned to acquiring and/or managing life insurance and annuity assets. Some PE firms buy out life insurance and annuity companies, acquiring their assets. Others take a minority stake in a life insurance or annuity company in exchange for the right to manage all of the company’s assets. In both cases, the PE firm substantially increases assets under its management. They have also stepped-up efforts to recruit near-wealthy as well as wealthy investors, so-called retail investors, to allow PE firms to manage their assets. These activities have been a game changer for the largest PE firms. As Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman put it as he lauded the firm’s third quarter 2021 performance, this quarter has been “the most consequential quarter [in history] . . . a defining moment in terms of our expansion into the vast retail and insurance markets.”1

Meanwhile, policyholders find that a PE firm now manages their retirement savings. This raises a major concern for individuals and government regulators: Given PE firms’ track record of failing to observe their duty of care as owners of Main Street companies as well as their poor fund performance in recent years,2 can they be trusted to protect the retirement savings of millions of Americans?

Author(s): EILEEN APPELBAUM

Publication Date: 13 January 2022

Publication Site: CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research)

Congressional Hearing Considers Private Equity-Controlled Insurers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://communications.willkie.com/110/1827/uploads-(icalendars-pdf-documents)/congressional-hearing-considers-private-equity-controlled-insurers.pdf

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On September 8, 2022, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (“Senate Banking Committee”) held a hearing to consider “Current Issues in Insurance.” One of the items discussed at the hearing was Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) March 2022 letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (the “NAIC”) and U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (“FIO”) regarding private equity-controlled insurers.1

In his letter, Senator Brown requested that FIO, in consultation with the NAIC, prepare a report for Congress that evaluates the investment strategies pursued by private equity-controlled insurers, the impact on protections for pension plan beneficiaries following pension risk transfer arrangements, and whether state regulatory regimes are capable of assessing and managing risks related to private equity-controlled insurers. In the early summer, the NAIC and the U.S. Department of the Treasury (on behalf of FIO) each provided substantive responses to Senator Brown.2

Author(s): Kara Baysinger | Leah Campbell | Jane Callanan | Matthew J. Gaul
Donald B. Henderson, Jr. | David G. Nadig | Allison J. Tam

Publication Date: 27 Sept 2022

Publication Site: Willkie Farr & Gallagher