Category Archives: Private equity

Why CalPERS’ Private Equity Outsourcing Scheme Is Likely to Hurt Returns

Why CalPERS’ private equity outsourcing scheme is likely to leave the funds’ beneficiaries and California taxpayers worse off.

CalPERS Let New Fox in the Private Equity Henhouse: Silicon Valley Fixer Wilson Sonsini

Why Wilson Sonsini’s not-obvious role at CalPERS is another red flag for CalPERS’ private equity outsourcing scheme.

CalPERS Chief Investment Office Ted Eliopoulos Now Touting Venture Capital Even Though It Can’t Improve Returns

CalPERS is about to embrace yet another bad investment idea.

Fiduciary Counsel Ashley Dunning Encourages CalPERS to Muscle Actuary to Change His Forecasts of Funding Needs

How CalPERS’ fiduciary counsel encouraged its board to pressure its actuary to produce more politically-convenient results.

CalPERS’ Fiduciary Counsel, Ashley Dunning, Lies to Board to Defend Private Equity Secrecy and Perpetuate Inadequate Supervision of Staff

Yet another example of the culture of casual lying at CalPERS and the deep-seated effort to neuter its board.

Why Is CalPERS Board Member/Governor Wannabe John Chiang Telling a Big Lie About CalPERS Private Equity Outsourcing Scheme?

Gubernatorial candidate John Chiang looks more loyal to private equity than he does to California voters and CalPERS beneficiaries.

CalPERS Launches Illegal, Corrupt, Unjustified and Beneficiary-Damaging Private Equity “Strategic Partner” Search Obviously Designed to Favor BlackRock

CalPERS looks to be handing the private equity keys to BlackRock in a breathtakingly crooked process.

Incoming Board Member Margaret Brown Criticizes CalPERS’ Plan to Hurt Beneficiaries by Hiring Unnecessary, High-Priced Private Equity Middlemen; CalPERS Violates Open Meeting Rules by Advancing Plan in Secret

Incoming CalPERS board member Margaret Brown dishes out some straight talk on where the giant pension fund needs to shape up.

Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Eleven: Annual Uber Losses Now Approaching $5 Billion

Uber’s ever-widening losses confirms Hubert Horan’s thesis that Uber has no credible path to profit absent a radical downsizing.

House Members Tee Up Bipartisan Bill to Kill CFPB Payday Lending Rule

Bipartisan support emerges for overturn of CFPB’s payday lending rule; will this prove to be another Cordray fail?

New Paper Debunks Desperate Rationalization for Private Equity: Lower Volatility Based on Bogus Valuations

A new paper by Jeff Hooke and Ken Yook of John Hopkins argues that “smoothed,” as in phony, private equity valuations are misleading.

New Study Undermines Rationale for Investing in Private Equity and CalPERS Strategy in Particular, as Oregon CIO Demonstrates that Public Pension Funds Are Dumb Money

A top private equity scholar finds her earlier work on persistence no longer holds, consigning a key industry defense to the dustbin.

Is the Sacramento Bee in the Business of Protecting CalPERS?

So why did the Sacramento Bee do CalPERS a big favor, particularly when CalPERS is clearly in the wrong?

Uber and SoftBank Might Finally Have a Deal….But What Does It Mean?

It’s taken Uber four months to perhaps cinch a deal with SoftBank, while the spectacularly loss-making company is no closer to making money.

How to Fight the Global Wall Street Landlords

Local activists are having some success in fighting Big Finance landlords who have become big, ruthless players in rental housing.