The Fund Finance Association has announced finalized agenda topics and speakers for the upcoming FFA European University on May 4-5. This year, FFA is offering delegates two tracks, one for those with 0-2 years experience and a more advanced training for those with 3+ years of experience. All registered attendees will have access to the recordings for all sessions. Find out more here.
Fundraising may be more challenging in the second half of the year than in the first, according to PitchBook’s comprehensive U.S. PE Breakdown of the U.S. market published on April 11. “The current fundraising demand from GPs is simply overwhelming LPs’ ability to supply capital,” write the authors. Several factors are at play: (1) megafunds are closing at meaningful step ups, (2) fund drawdowns have shortened and fundraising frequency accelerated, and (3) the number of funds in the market is at an all-time high.
On Friday, May 13, Women in Fund Finance will host a virtual event, “Crypto 101: Demystifying Cryptocurrency & Blockchain,” featuring speaker Bob Griffin of WhiteTower Capital Management, LLC and moderated by Fazillah Durante of Scotiabank. This will be the first installment in WFF’s “Crypto 101” series. Please visit here to register.
Women in Fund Finance’s Asia and UK chapters this week announced a May 18 event titled “Finding Purpose: How to Get More Out of Your Career.” For more information, click here.
Private Funds CFO this week reported on 17Capital’s recent NAV fundraise and 2022 deployment. The article is available here.
Scott Aleali and Jeff Maier released a new edition of Fund Fanatics that covers the latest trends in the secondaries market and features Sameer Shamsi, Head of Secondaries at Houlihan Lokey. You can watch here.
First Republic is hiring for a Sr. Credit Analyst in San Francisco. The Sr. Credit Analyst qualifications include strong private equity credit and underwriting skills.
Wells Fargo continues to grow its European Fund Finance team and is hiring one Analyst and one Associate to support the bank’s fund-level financing activities to private equity funds and other asset managers through structured credit facilities.
Shuja Naqvi has been promoted to Assistant Vice President at State Street, where he works as part of the Fund Finance team based in London.
KBRA has announced the addition of Constantine Schidlovsky as Senior Director and Global Head of Business Development for its growing Funds business. Constantine will also lead its asset manager and BDC coverage, additional growing businesses for KBRA. Constantine joins KBRA from Fitch Ratings, where he spent several years in a similar position.
Cadwalader’s Fund Finance Team has been shortlisted in the “Fund Financing: Advisory Services” category as part of The Drawdown Awards 2022 program. The awards celebrate excellence and innovation within private capital fund operations, as recognized across 34 categories for both GPs and service providers. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 9 in London.
Fund Finance Friday has previously reported on the continuous rise of public pension money in private equity. Generally, such investments are made in commingled funds with a diversified group of investors, but we also commonly see these public pension and retirement funds (each, a “Public Fund”) invest in a fund-of-one vehicle where all or substantially all of the assets are from the Public Fund (a “Fund”). Such Funds are commonly known in the industry as an “SMA” (separately managed account). In this article, I will focus on the recommended scope of due diligence to be conducted when an SMA’s sole investor is a Public Fund to ensure that both the Public Fund has the authority to invest in the SMA (the “Investment”) and to confirm that there is no obvious prohibition of the Investment under state law.