Columbia Business School

Beyond Traditional PE Investing: The Secondary and Direct Investment Opportunity Today

Private equity investors seeking new sources of return are expanding beyond traditional fund investing into secondary deals and co-investments. Additionally, the line between LPs and GPs is becoming increasingly blurred as LPs build in-house teams to invest directly in companies. This panel, comprised of direct, secondary, co-investment, and pension fund private capital investors as well as private equity legal and financial advisors, will explore whether these trends are likely to continue and discuss what it takes to build a successful secondary, co-investment, or direct investment strategy.
 

Moderator

Bill Murphy '90 - Managing Director, Cogent Partners

Mr. Murphy is a Managing Director and Partner in charge of Cogent Partners’ New York office. He has overall responsibility for firm strategy, relationship management, engagement origination and execution, transaction structuring and the delivery of Cogent’s investment banking and research services.  Mr. Murphy has 20 years of experience in advising clients with respect to illiquid alternative asset markets. While at Cogent, Mr. Murphy has advised clients with regard to more than $13 billion in private equity holdings, including more than 1,000 funds.  He has structured and executed secondary sale transactions, led the restructuring of private equity investment vehicles, advised institutions on investments in private equity general partners/management companies, arranged private equity secured debt financings, performed partnership and portfolio valuations, provided acquisition advisory services and performed risk underwriting on behalf of banks and the reinsurance market. Prior to joining Cogent in 2003, Mr. Murphy was a senior member of Citigroup’s Private Equity Group, where he led the secondary sell side, securitization and new product development initiatives in private equity. Prior to joining the Private Equity Group, Mr. Murphy spent seven years in Citigroup’s Real Estate Investment Banking Group.  While in the Real Estate Group, he originated and executed more than 50 corporate financing and strategic transactions, with a total value in excess of $8 billion. Prior to joining Citigroup, Mr. Murphy worked at the international real estate advisory firms of Sonnenblick-Goldman Company and Weatherall Green & Smith.  Mr. Murphy earned an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Panelists

Jeff Barman, CFA '98 - Managing Director, Performance Equity Management

Mr. Barman is a Managing Director and a member of the Investment Committee of Performance Equity.  Prior to the formation of Performance Equity in June 2005, Mr. Barman was a Portfolio Manager in the General Motors Investment Management Private Markets Group and a member of the private equity investment committee.  Prior to joining General Motors Investment Management in 1998, Mr. Barman worked for Oracle Corporation in operations management.  Mr. Barman is a member of the CFA Institute.  Mr. Barman received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his MBA with honors from Columbia University.

Margaret Butler `01 - Of Counsel, Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Margaret Isa Butler is a veteran deal advisor who helps investment funds respond to the institutionalization of private equity on an outsourced, flexible basis and in proportion to their scale.  Margaret’s personal mission is to apply life hacking principles to the markets for legal and operational services, so that she can meet her clients’ needs in the most cost effective way possible.  A key step she takes is to identify and prioritize each potential client’s particular issues and propose the right person for each action item. Margaret fills gaps for private equity clients that include running deals and managing back office functions and corporate compliance at both the fund and the portfolio company levels. Currently Of Counsel at Greenberg Traurig LLP, Margaret brings to each engagement her up-to-date knowledge of private equity industry best practices, A-list relationships, sound business judgment and a keen execution focus.  Margaret cut her teeth at Wachtell Lipton, where she spent five years doing public company mergers and acquisitions and fund formation.  More recently she served as an investment banker at Jefferies and as a business transactions lawyer at Schulte Roth & Zabel, where she led the execution of complicated deals, including cross-border, distressed and other high-stakes M&A and joint ventures. Margaret is a member of the Advisory Board of the Private Equity Program at Columbia Business School and recently completed a three-year term on the M&A Committee of the New York City Bar Association.  She also leads the Harvard Club of New York’s M&A interest group and has taught at a City Bar CLE program on securities law.  In addition, she has spoken at a distressed investing conference and has been published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Margaret has an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, and a JD from Columbia Law School, where she served as Senior Editor of Columbia Law Review and was designated a James Kent Scholar.  Her undergraduate degree is from Harvard College.  Margaret also has native fluency in oral and written Spanish. When she is away from the office, Margaret is a hockey mom and a member of the Kingsbridge National Ice Center brain trust (her husband is the real estate developer bringing the world’s largest ice sports arena to NYC, in conjunction with legendary athletes and renown investors).  She is also an active supporter of the performing arts.

Andrew Claerhout - Head of Consumer, Retail, and Industrials, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

Andrew Claerhout heads the consumer, retail, and industrials group for Teachers' Private Capital. He joined Teachers' in 2005 from EdgeStone Capital Partners. Previously, Andrew worked at Pacific Equity Partners in Australia and Bain & Company in Canada and in Hong Kong. Andrew has been involved in a number of private equity transactions across various industries while at Teachers' Private Capital and currently sits on the board of AOT Bedding (Serta), Easton-Bell Sports, EXAL Group, General Nutrition Centers (GNC), Munchkin and Simmons Bedding Company. Andrew received an HBA degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, completed the Stanford Executive Program, and is a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors

Scott Higbee - Partner & Head of NY Office, Partners Group

Scott Higbee is head of Partners Group’s New York office and head of the investment solutions Americas team. He has been with Partners Group since 2001 and has 16 years of industry experience. Prior to joining Partners Group, he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds an MBA from the Brigham Young University Marriott School of Management, Utah.

Victor Wu - Principal, Lexington Partners

Mr. Wu is a principal of Lexington primarily engaged in the evaluation of secondary purchases of buyout, mezzanine and venture capital partnership interests. Prior to joining Lexington in 2001, Mr. Wu was an analyst in investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Wu graduated from the University of Michigan Business School with a BBA and from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with an MBA.