Cogent alums launch LP advisory firm

Two former research executives at Cogent Partners have launched LP Analyst, a consulting firm for limited partners.

The firm will focus on providing advice and analysis for fund due diligence, fund monitoring, portfolio monitoring and portfolio evaluation. It will also focus on fund valuation services for secondary deals and other transactions. The firm is based in Dallas, Texas.

LP Analyst’s clients include corporate and public pensions, financial institutions, endowments, foundations, family offices, high net worth individuals and financial intermediaries. The firm works with investors in private equity, real estate, venture capital, distressed debt, mezzanine, natural resources, infrastructure and secondaries. 

LP Analyst is led by co-founding partners Katita Palamar and Bill Farrell, former co-heads of the research division at private equity-focused investment bank Cogent, where they each worked for roughly eight years. Prior to joining Cogent, Farrell worked in Bear Stearns’ investment banking division. Palamar previously worked at Goldman Sachs, where she specialised in fixed income securitisation.

“We are intensely focused on improving the way private equity portfolios are built, monitored and managed,” Palamar said in a statement. “Valuation of private equity fund interests can be extremely complex and time consuming.”

In recent years, a number of former private equity professionals have started advisory firms to help address some of the complex issues facing LPs. Last September, Joncarlo Mark, a former investment officer with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, launched Upwelling Capital, which helps institutional investors deal with investments run by managers who are not likely to raise a new fund.

Earlier in 2011, Alexander Abell, who worked as a director at fund of funds BlackRock Private Equity Partners, launched Atlas Diligence, which advises LPs on targeting specific strategies such as emerging markets.