Sky Blog
Over the past 30 years, private equity firms and hedge funds have reshaped the landscape of corporate ownership. By 2022, firms under private equity management employed over 11 million people, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. workforce, while, in 2021, …
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released a draft overhaul of their merger guidelines. The merger guidelines are intended to describe how the agencies evaluate mergers and reach decisions on …
It is de rigueur to label everything as sustainable – including in private equity. In a new working paper, we examine the claims of the top 100 private equity firms in the United States as to their committment to ESG. …
The runs on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank in March 2023 created a “very high” risk of contagion in the U.S. banking system, according to Treasury Department officials. The intervention by banking regulators, using tools approved in response …
Private equity sponsors compete ferociously for acquisition targets, with one of their principal tools being the speed with which they can move. A recent decision of the Delaware Court of Chancery (In Re Mindbody, Inc., S’Holder Litig., C.A. …
2022 was a tale of two halves for M&A. The beginning of the year was active, as robust dealmaking carried over from the record-breaking levels of 2021 to drive approximately $2.2 trillion worth of global deals through the first half …
Top practitioners, judges, regulators, and scholars gathered at Columbia Law School on December 2 to offer their unique perspectives and cutting-edge insights on a variety of topics related to M&A and corporate governance. The topics included current M&A market trends, …
Biden-appointed antitrust officials have asserted, unfairly in our view, that private equity firms deserve heightened scrutiny when they engage in corporate transactions. For example, the head of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said in an interview with The Financial Times earlier …
The SEC has long taken a hands-off approach to private markets. Instead of direct regulation, the commission has used investor access restrictions to create high-end contracting environments where investors (in theory) have the resources necessary to fend for themselves. But …
Among those who study corporate financial distress and reorganization, the notion that senior lenders are in control is deeply ingrained. Celebrated papers in the law and corporate finance literatures attribute lender influence during periods of distress to blue-sky contracting practices.…
On June 13, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) five commissioners aired their ideological differences over the regulation of private equity-backed consolidation and the tools used to police such deals via a consent agreement settling the FTC’s challenge to a …
Traditionally, high-growth private firms in the United States have used the public equity markets as their primary source of external financing to fund innovation and expansion. For this reason, well-functioning capital markets have been instrumental to the U.S. economy, supporting …
Merger control authorities in many jurisdictions are taking a more aggressive and expansive approach when reviewing industry-consolidating transactions, and some are using the merger clearance process to advance policy objectives involving areas far beyond those of traditional competition. In addition, …
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed new cybersecurity rules for investment advisers and investment companies that would require policies and procedures, annual reviews, reporting …
SEC proposes amendments to bolster private fund reporting
On January 26, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to propose certain amendments to Form PF designed to facilitate the SEC’s oversight of private fund advisers and …
On June 3, 2021, President Biden issued the Memorandum on Establishing the Fight Against Corruption as a Core United States National Security Interest (the Anti-Corruption Memo). The Anti-Corruption Memo directed senior figures from the administration’s national security team to oversee …
Thank you. As is customary, I will note that I am not speaking on behalf of the Commission or SEC staff.
Today, I’d like to talk about private funds, and the importance of certain of these funds — in particular, …
Private equity (PE) firms have in recent years been spending more money on purchasing more hospitals than ever before, with such deals accounting for a sizeable chunk of the roughly $340 billion that PE firms have put into the U.S. …
The Securities and Exchange Commission under Chair Gary Gensler has been exploring transparency issues and other problems in the private equity industry and considering whether additional policy interventions are needed. One motivating factor is that public pension plans are the …
Venture capital and private equity funds are important equity investors in private companies (Hand 2005; Stromberg 2008; Kaplan and Stromberg 2009), and their investments are characterized by an extensive search process that imposes significant upfront costs for the funds (Chen …