Portfolio.com argues that the private equity industry doesn't produce real returns for investors. According to the article, "private equity firms generally don’t make their money by choosing good investments. They make it on an amazing Technicolor array of fees: management fees, deal completion fees, consulting fees, performance fees, special events fees, fees of every kind and stripe. Chalk it up to yet another racket of the bubble years."
The entire spectrum of alternative asset management is under attack. Much of it is deserved and we are in the early phase of a shakeout. In the meantime, the good apples are tainted by the bad and they are not doing much about it.
Are there hedge funds that are delivering for investors even now as so many funds are making excuses instead of money? Yes. Are there private equity firms that are truly creating value instead of paying themselves out by further saddling their portfolio companies with unnecessary debt? Yes.
The problem is that no one is talking about the good apples in the alternatives arena. No one is making the case that hedge funds and private equity are valuable, even important, vehicles for institutions, like pension funds, that should reasonably expect to make money even when the market is down. This should be an easy argument to make, but no one is actively taking it on.
No one ever got fired for buying IBM, for making the safe choice. The question at hand is will the alternative arena become perceived as the patently unsafe choice for institutional managers? And if so, will it go down without a whimper?
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