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Private Equity International

GPs sign on to private capital database
April 5, 2012

A group of private equity firms including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, The Carlyle Group and Apollo Global Management have agreed to contribute transaction and fund information to a database being developed by the Private Capital Research Institution.

The PCRI has been working on the global private capital database since late 2010, which will be stored behind a firewall at the National Opinion Research Center, an organization associated with the University of Chicago. Led by Harvard Business School professor Josh Lerner, the PCRI will collaborate with The Brookings Institute to analyse and share its findings with academics, industry players, policymakers and the general public.

’ÄúWhen you think about some of the questions that limited partners would want [answered] getting dispassionate high quality research going will make a big difference,’Äù Lerner told Private Equity International. ’ÄúThere are a number of people who are LPs who are on our advisory board who have been quite supportive.’Äù

A total of 15 GPs have agreed to provide data to the PCRI initiative, including investors in the upper end of the market such as Clayton Dubilier & Rice and Thomas H Lee Partners as well as mid-market firms like The Riverside Company and Kohlberg & Company. Other fund managers that have agreed to contribute to the database include Actis, Apax Partners, Berkshire Partners, Court Square Capital Partners, First Reserve Corporation, General Atlantic, New Mountain Capital and Saybrook Corporate Opportunity Funds.

The PCRI plans to expand the number of organisations contributing to the database to include a broader population sample.

’ÄúOne of our main focuses is going to be broadening the reach across the middle market much more generally,’Äù Lerner said, adding that the PCRI aims to have the first version of the database ready by the fall of 2012.

The need for a new private capital database, according to the PCRI, stems from current challenges to performing ’Äúhighquality academic research’Äù and ’Äúsignificant discrepancies across existing databases’Äù. Many researchers have also experienced difficulty gaining access to fund and transaction information from existing databases.

Last September, the Institutional Limited Partners expressed its support for the PCRI database.

’ÄúWith more data and reports being generated on the subject, it will provide the opportunity for that [knowledge] gap to diminish, ILPA executive director Kathy Jeramaz-Larson told Private Equity International at the time. ’ÄúWe support transparency in the asset class between institutional investors and general partners, and for the most part, both groups are data oriented,’Äù she said.

In addition to private equity firms and ILPA, the PCRI has also gained the support of a number of data providers, including the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association.

 
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