Two weird things are happening in the private equity (PE) world.
On the one hand, there’s about $100 billion capital that was raised in the years leading up to the financial crisis but not invested. With five years or so to use that “dry powder”—a period that for many funds is up at the end of this year—they are jumping to make investments before they have to return money to investors. And investors, disappointed with the recent lackluster returns in PE, may not want to put more money in. That could be the reason why 24% fewer funds successfully closed fundraising rounds in 2012 than did in 2011.
On the other hand, there’s an opposite push happening on the regulatory end.
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