Category Archives: Private equity

How Private Equity Executives Like Blackstone’s Tony James Engage in Dubious Side Deals

Today, we’ll examine conflicts of interest involving principals at the private equity firms themselves. Here our object lesson is private equity kingpin Blackstone Group.

Matryoshka Doll, Private Equity Edition

From Item 2(a) in the December 31, 2007 13G filing for SuccessFactors, Inc., on page 5:

Beware Private Equity Guys Bearing Gifts: Eminent Domain Mortgage Scam Hit with Well-Deserved Lawsuit

The private equity firm Mortgage Resolution Partners looks to be well on its way to getting the good uses of eminent domain torpedoed by getting some not-too-swift municipalities to sign up for its self-serving scheme. One indicator of how dubious the MPR program is that investors who have been complacent in the face of all sorts of abuses by originators and servicers, have roused themselves to act in a unified manner and push back against the MRP plan, in the form of a suit filed in Federal court in California on Wednesday.

Memo to Eliot Spitzer: If Even Harvard’s Own Law Firm is More Loyal to Bain, How Can You Get Good Legal Advice?

The saga of Harvard Management Company’s relationship with its lead law firm, Ropes & Gray, is a cautionary tale for those who like to believe that private equity investors are doing a good job of taking care of their interests. Just follow the money.

Memo to Eliot Spitzer: Private Equity Firms are Scamming New York City

Eliot Spitzer, now the top contender to be the next New York City Comptroller, has said he wants to use the office to pursue financial reform. He has a ready, obvious, and comparatively easy target: the private equity industry.

Four Headwinds to the US Housing Recovery

Yves here. This post from MacroBusiness describes three risks facing the American housing recovery, and I thought I’d add a fourth, which is the open question of how much longer private equity funds and other speculators will continue to bid up housing prices.

Wall Street and Unions Have Knives Out Against Spitzer’s NYC Comptroller Run

Nothing like the prospect of someone with a high profile and a track record of going toe to toe with powerful interests and rich enough not to be beholden to party machinery to bring out all sorts of hacks and score-settlers.

So Who is the Dumb Money Ruining the Rental Housing Market?

The head of Carrington, which is known as an established distressed debt investor and more recently, an early entrant in the single family home rental business, said this week it was no longer buying houses for lease because dumb money had ruined the market.

Private Equity Residential Landlords Rushing to Cash Out via IPOs

We’ve been skeptical of the private equity land rush to snap up single family homes for rentals. They’ve been a big enough force in the housing market nationwide to lead some commentators to question how solid the housing “recovery” is. Yet the combination of rising enthusiasm for housing and a richly-valued stock market is leading a raft of PE firms to ready IPOs as a way to take profits and establish valuations for their profit participations.

OCC Misses Another Conflict of Interest: Foreclosure Review Outreach/Payment Processor Rust Consulting Owned By Residential Real Estate Player Apollo, Being Sold to VC Arm of Citigroup

It appears that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Fed dropped the ball yet again on vetting firms involved in the Orwellianly-named Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR) for conflicts of interest. Michael Olenick’s expose on Allonhill, one of the “independent consultants” hired by Wells Fargo, led to Allonhill’s role being curtailed considerably.

But there’s no way to curtail the role of Rust Consulting, a firm that has been central in the Independent Foreclosure Reviews virtually from their onset. And as we’ll see, Rust has ample conflicts of interest when it was engaged to handle mailings and outreach under the IFR, and is about to become even more conflicted.

Wolf Richter: Housing Bubble II – But This Time It’s Different

We have seen it for several years: foreclosure sales have become the hunting grounds for investors with two goals: hanging on to these homes until the Fed’s flood of money drives up their value, and renting them out. Thousands of smaller investors have piled into the game. And so have the giants. But now the second half of the equation is collapsing.

Bank of America Foreclosure Reviews: How Promontory Became a Shadow Regulator (Part VA)

Today we release the two latest posts in our whistleblower series on the Bank of America foreclosure reviews, focusing on the role of the “independent” consultant hired to perform the reviews, Promontory Financial Group.

Krugman Ponders the Fallen State of US Labor

Paul Krugman is troubled by this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is looking for explanations.

The Grey Lady Voices Some Skepticism About IPO of Single Family Rental Player Silver Lake

This site refrains from talking about individual stocks, since we don’t give investment advice. However, a potential sea-change is underway, as a large portion of the inventory of foreclosed homes is being converted to rentals. Private equity firms are pursuing this opportunity eagerly, as the combination of low financing costs and tight rental markets in the US means that, at least on paper, investor believe they can earn attractive income, with potential for appreciation, either by eventually selling the houses to individuals or by taking the company public.

Given all the excitement over this conversion (it was voted the best opportunity over the next 12 months at a real estate conference I attended in the fall), it was interesting to detect a fair bit in the way of reservations in an article in the New York Times on the first IPO in this space, Silver Lake.