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Bill McGlashan Out at TPG Following College Admissions Cheating Allegations
TPG says it terminated him. McGlashan says he quit first.
Bill McGlashan is officially out at TPG Growth and The Rise Fund after federal prosecutors charged him earlier this week with participating in the college admissions cheating scandal, a TPG spokesperson confirmed Thursday.
“Bill McGlashan has been terminated for cause from his positions with TPG and Rise effective immediately. After reviewing the allegations of personal misconduct in the criminal complaint, we believe the behavior described to be inexcusable and antithetical to the values of our entire organization,” a spokesperson for TPG said via email Thursday evening.
McGlashan, who founded TPG’s Growth fund and co-founded The Rise Fund, a social and environmental impact fund, was charged Tuesday with allegedly paying bribes to facilitate his children's admission to colleges, federal prosecutors said. TPG placed him on leave that day.
Jim Coulter, the co-CEO of TPG, will take over managing partner responsibilities for TPG Growth and Rise, according to the firm.
A spokesperson for McGlashan forwarded e-mails to Institutional Investor that purport to show McGlashan submitted his resignation before the firm terminated him.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I am submitting this resignation from my positions at TPG and The Rise Fund,” McGlashan said in an email to TPG executives Jim Coulter, Jon Winkelried and David Bonderman sent Thursday afternoon. “Given the short time we have had, I am doing so without having worked out our financial relationship and without prejudice to my financial rights. You have told me that it is important to TPG and The Rise Fund to have this clear separation occur quickly and that is why I am submitting this resignation effective immediately.”
Winkelried responded in an email sent approximately an hour later, writing, “Please see the attached Notice of Termination of your employment, which we were preparing to send to you when your note arrived.”
McGlashan responded to the email, writing, “I am perplexed by your attempt to terminate me because, as you acknowledged in your email, you had already received my resignation.”
McGlashan later submitted a separate letter to the board of The Rise Fund.
“Though it breaks my heart to write this, I feel it is now the right thing to resign from The Rise Fund and TPG Growth,” he wrote. “The progress we have made is too important for you to be distracted by the issues I am facing personally… I am deeply sorry this very difficult situation may interfere with the work to which I have devoted my life.”
McGlashan added in the letter that there were “aspects of the story that have yet to emerge that I wish I could share” but that he felt it was “essential” that this process happen apart from his former firm. TPG declined to comment further on the emails.
A few institutions have money tied up with The Rise Fund. The San Francisco Employee Retirement System and the Washington State Investment Board had invested in The Rise Fund in 2017, meeting minutes from the time show. The New Jersey State Investment Council was also considering whether to invest in the second Rise Fund, a memo from the council shows.
McGlashan is listed as a key investment professional in New Jersey’s memo on The Rise Fund. A source familiar with the matter has confirmed that even though McGlashan was fired, no key man clause has been tripped.
However, according to the source, existing investors in Rise Fund II will have the opportunity to “reaffirm their commitments” to the fund. In other words, if they choose to pull out, they will be able to do so.
The source also said that Rise Fund I has not yet received any redemption requests, although it is still early days.
A spokesperson for the WSIB said Wednesday that the group is closely monitoring how TPG handles the situation. Spokespeople from SFERS and the New Jersey State Investment Board did not respond to requests for comment.
[II Deep Dive: Here Are The Allocators That Invested With Charged TPG Exec’s Rise Fund]
According to court documents, McGlashan allegedly conspired to bribe a senior associate athletic director at the University of Southern California to facilitate his son’s admission to the school as a recruited athlete. A cooperating witness said they allegedly created a fake athletic profile for McGlashan’s son, court documents show.
McGlashan is set to initially appear in a federal court in Boston on March 29.
This story has been updated from an earlier version to include information from McGlashan's representatives.