The fabled success of Invesco Private Capital is looking more and more like the tale of the goose that laid the golden egg. The New York-based U.S. subsidiary of Invesco, which is owned by U.K.-based Amvescap, has already seen half of its six senior partners leave while a fourth, Parag Saxena – recently named one of the top 24 dealmakers in the country by Forbes Magazine – has one foot out the door. The source of the brain drain reportedly is a clash of corporate cultures; for one thing, Invesco likes to play things nice and tight when it comes to rules, while IPC, in the true venture capitalist fashion, likes it loose. According to Forbes, IPC wanted to spin out into its own unit, but Invesco nixed the idea, and now the little unit that could do big things, says Forbes, will have to delay the launch of its $400 million Chancellor VI VC fund. A recent departee, Alessandro Piol, told Forbes it wasn’t that Invesco didn’t let him and others do their thing; it’s just they demanded they do things they felt were irrelevant to them, like attending corporate meetings that had nothing to do with VC. Invesco, suggests Forbes, would have been wise to follow the example of other companies, such as JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, which have separated their free-spirited VC and private equity units from the parent.
