Private equity chiefs scramble to defend their industry's tax advantages after Barack Obama proposed to more than double the tax rate for carried interest, the profit-share that provides much of their income

Some of Europe's biggest private equity investors have attacked a plan requiring alternative fund managers to register, saying it was likely to push up costs without delivering much benefit

Rewind almost three years and the trade union movement was embroiled in a bitter media spat with the private equity industry. We were asked to produce the evidence that private equity firms increased risk for the companies they acquired. Well, the evidence is now here.

Private equity firms fear Government plans to raise capital gains tax from 18pc to 40pc could deal a devastating blow to their business model.

In an interview with Euractiv, Javier Echarri, Secretary-General of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA), criticised the EU’s proposed directive on alternative investment funds for being flawed and for discriminating against private equity, particularly through its strict disclosure requirements.

UNI has put out a useful little report (PDF) looking at pension fund investment in private equity as an asset class. It helpfully points out where the labour movement has representation in the funds that are investing in PE (actually this is quite common). It's another sign that unions are developing another element to their engagement with private equity. So far we've had the air war - ...

I just realised that this blog is now two years old. I just had a quick look back over the labels on my posts and the 10 most popular (in descending order) are - Private equity Capital markets Pensions reform Tories (oh dear) Workers capital Shareholder voting Behavioural economics Blogging TUC SRI Obviously I was blogging a LOT about private equity during 2007, but it went much more quiet in 2008...

I must be thick, but this story doesn't seem to make much sense to me. UK – Claims that private equity firms are driving pension funds into the control of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) have been challenged by new research. According to the research conducted by Close Brothers, companies backed by private equity firms accounted for 29% of the pension schemes that had been forced to e...

Hat-tip to Global Proxy Watch for this one, a paper on agency problems with respect to private equity. Remember the pitch from proponents is that private equity solves the agency problem in the shareholder-company model. I've blogged before that I'm a bit sceptical about this. But this paper looks to do the work properly rather than guess at the problem!Here's the abstract:Abstract: Because a buyo...

European Commission proposals to regulate alternative investment funds discriminate against private equity and favour direct competitors like sovereign wealth funds or maverick businessmen, Javier Echarri, secretary-general of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA), told EurActiv in an interview.