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Recruiting Private Equity Talent Getting More Expensive For Pension Funds

As more pension funds participate in direct investing or co-investing ventures, they find the need for private equity experts on their staff.

But the cost of getting that talent is growing: a recent survey found that almost 50 percent of pension funds are having to shovel out higher salaries to recruit and retain private equity employees.

From the Financial Times:

Private equity employees are commanding higher wages as increasing amounts of money are pushed into the asset class.

Almost half of North American limited partnerships (pension funds and funds of funds) are having to increase their pay scales to recruit staff, according to a survey of 114 investors and private equity funds by Coller Capital, which invests in the secondary private equity market. The European market lags behind somewhat, with 30 per cent of LPs increasing salaries.

“The industry has done very well over the past couple of years, with very strong distribution,” said Michael Schad, a partner at Coller Capital. “As there is more demand from employers, wages can go up.”

As well as the industry expanding, investors are entering more directly into the asset class, either co-investing with general partners or building their own private equity investment capabilities. “This requires different skill sets,” said Mr Schad.

The survey also asked where funds were looking to recruit PE employees:

While more than half expect to recruit employees from other LPs, almost as many (46 per cent) will look for talent at alternative asset managers that are not private equity firms. A third will take on former investment bankers, but just a quarter hope to attract workers from general partners (private equity firms).

Increasing remuneration may be good news for the LPs, according to remarks made by Klaus Ruhne, partner at ATP Private Equity Partners, during a round-table held by private equity consultant Triago in November.

“What is more important than the size of teams, or the value of assets under management, is the frequent lack of generous long-term incentive plans for limited partners,” he said. “Without a restructuring of LP compensation, we will continue to witness an inordinate amount of inconsistency and even foolishness when it comes to how capital is deployed and how limited partners are organised.”

The survey was conducted by Coller Capital.

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Paul Singer Says CalPERS Was “Wrong to Desert” Hedge Funds

Paul Singer, a hedge fund manager, activist investor and billionaire, again questioned CalPERS’ decision to pull out of hedge funds at a conference Friday in New York. Heard by Businessweek:

Paul Singer, who runs hedge fund firm Elliott Management, said the decision by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System to stop investing with hedge funds was a mistake.

“Calpers is not too big to have a group of trading firms in their mix,” Singer said today at a conference in New York sponsored by the New York Times’ DealBook. “I think they are wrong to desert the asset class.”

The remarks were brief – but it’s not the first time he’s expressed the sentiment. Last month, he made similar statements in a letter to clients of his firm Elliott Management. Pension360 covered the remarks, which were originally reported by CNBC:

“We are certainly not in a position to be opining on the ‘asset class’ of hedge funds, or on any of the specific funds that were held or rejected by CalPERS, but we think the decision to abandon hedge funds altogether is off-base,” Singer wrote in a recent letter to clients of his $25.4 billion Elliott Management Corp.

[…]

On complexity, Singer wrote that it should be a positive.

“It is precisely complexity that provides the opportunity for certain managers to generate different patterns of returns than those available from securities, markets and styles that are accessible to anyone and everyone,” the letter said.

He went on:

“We also never understood the discussions framed around full transparency. While nobody wants to invest in a black box, Elliott (and other funds) trade positions that could be harmed by public knowledge of their size, short-term direction or even their identity.”

Singer also slammed CalPERs for its complaint about the relative high cost of hedge funds.

“We at Elliott do not understand manager selection criteria based on the level of fees rather than on the result that investors could reasonably expect after fees and expenses are taken into account,” he wrote.

The broader point Singer makes is on the enduring value of hedge funds to diversify a portfolio.

“Current bond prices seem to create a modest performance comparator for some well-managed hedge funds. Moreover, stocks are priced to be consistent with bond prices, and we have a hard time envisioning double-digit annual stock index gains in the next few years,” the letter said.

“Many hedge funds may have as much trouble in the next few years as institutional investors, but investors should be looking for the prospective survivors of the next rounds of real market turmoil.”

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Dan Primack: All Alternatives Are Not Created Equal

Pension funds have been receiving flak from all sides lately regarding alternative investments.

The criticisms have been varied: the high fees, opacity, underperformance and illiquidity.

But, outside of official statements from pension staff defending their investments, it’s not often we get to here from the people on the other side of the argument.

Dan Primack argues in a column this week that not all alternatives are created equal—and the fight against the asset class has been “oversimplified”.

From Fortune:

Hedge funds are considered to be “alternative investments.” So is private equity. And venture capital. And sometimes so is real estate, timber and certain types of commodities.

A number of public pension systems have increased their exposure to “alternatives” in recent years, at the same time that they either have curtailed (or threatened to curtail) payouts to pensioners. The official line is that the former is to prevent more of the latter, but many critics believe Wall Street is getting rich at the expense of modest retirees.

The complaint, however, generally boils down to this: Alternatives have underperformed the S&P 500 in recent years, even though many alternative funds charge higher fees than would a public equities index fund manager. In other words, state pensions are overpaying for underperformance.

Great bumper sticker. Lousy understanding of investment strategies.

The simple reality is that not all alternatives are created equal. Some, like private equity, are more tightly correlated to public equities than are others. Some are designed to chase public equities in bull markets without collapsing alongside them (that’s where the name “hedge” name from). Real estate is largely its own animal. Same goes for certain oil and gas partnerships.

Lumping all of them together because of fee strategies makes as much sense as arguing that a quarterback should be paid the same as an offensive lineman. After all, they both play football, right?

Primack uses New Jersey as an example:

For those who want to criticize public pensions for investing in alternatives, be specific. New Jersey, for example, reported alternative investment performance of 14.21% for the year ending June 30, 2014. That trailed the S&P 500 for the same period, which came in at 21.38% (or the S&P 1500, which came in at 16.99%). But that alternatives number is a composite of private equity (23.7%), hedge funds (10.2%), real estate (12.74%) and real assets/commodities (6.12%). The sub-asset class most tightly correlated to public equities actually outperformed the S&P 500 (net of fees).

Would New Jersey pensioners have been better off without private equity? Clearly not for that time period. Having avoided real estate or hedge funds, however, would be a different argument. But even that case is tough to prove until New Jersey’s relatively immature alternatives program experiences a bear market. For example, both hedge funds and the S&P 500 went red last month, but the S&P 500’s loss was actually a bit worse. And macro hedge fund managers actually had positive returns. Does that make up for years of the S&P 500 outperforming hedge? Likewise, should real estate performance receive an indirect bump from recent rises in venture capital performance, just because they are both “alternatives?”

Again, that’s a judgment call that should be based on voluminous data, rather than on knee-jerk anger that alternative money managers are getting paid while retiree benefits are getting cut. If alternative managers are helping to stem the severity of those cuts, then everyone wins. If not, then the state pension needs a change in policy. But, in either case, the specific alternative sub-asset classes should be analyzed on their own merits, rather than as one homogeneous bucket. Otherwise, critics may throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Read the entire column here.

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