Welcome to the weekend, everybody. Here’s some news for your reading enjoyment:
- Disintermediation: This middleman is planning to deploy capital using an investment strategy that’s based on the elimination of middlemen . . . my brain hurts.
- Ventured Capital: Alaska’s sovereign fund has realized a venture capitalists dream . . . without involving any venture capitalists.
- Raison D’être: Norway is drawing on its SWF to mitigate the impact of low oil prices on its economy, which is precisely why governments set up SWFs to begin with.
- New SDFs I: Taiwan is considering a new SDF to help catalyze emerging industries, such as the country’s biotech industry.
- New SDFs II: Indonesia wants its own version of Temasek or Khazanah.
- The Fee Machine I: Hedge fund fees are coming down . . . and they are still ridiculously expensive. The average fees are now: 1.64 percent and 20 percent.
- The Fee Machine II: NJ’s pension paid $744 million in management fees over the past few decad. . . Wait, hold on one sec. OK, I’m being told that’s a single year’s fees.
- The Fee Machine III: Great news for Carlyle and Apollo! They’re under formal investigation by SEC for their shady fee practices. Oh, sorry. I meant terrible news. Not great; terrible. My bad.
- Attraction: Among the top 10 asset management firms everybody wants to work for are . . . two SWFs!
- Retention: AP4’s CIO and CEO have now both resigned within a few weeks of each other. Something’s off here. What’s going on?
Have a great weekend!
