ILPA private equity meeting proves ‘productive’

The ILPA roundtable between GPs and LPs Tuesday had more ‘agreement than disagreement’, according to Joseph Dear, CalPERS' CIO.

A secretive summit between some big-name general partners and limited partners in New York today was “productive” with more “agreement than disagreement”, according to Joseph Dear, chief investment officer of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

A group of high-powered GPs and LPs met on Tuesday to discuss “the role of private equity in the portfolios and the challenges and opportunities facing the industry”, Dear said in an emailed statement after the meeting.

Joseph Dear

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the meeting. The WSJ said the meeting included David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group, Glenn Hutchins and co-chief executive of Silver Lake Partners. On the investor side, Dear was joined by John Breen, head of private equity investing at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Ahmed Gubash, head of private equity at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the WSJ reported.

Dear, in the emailed statement, called the summit an Institutional Limited Partners Association roundtable. ILPA is an organisation of the biggest investors in private equity, representing more than $1 trillion in assets.

ILPA released guidelines last year intended to better align the interests of LPs with GPs. The ILPA guidelines have become a source of tension in the LP/GP relationship, as investors press for the more investor-friendly terms and managers try to determine which guidelines are feasible to meet.

ILPA and the firms that reportedly attended the roundtable declined or were not available for comment.