The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering letting nonaccredited investors put money into closely held investment pools such as hedge funds, private equity and venture capital. This alone is reason to reconsider the issues of transparency and disclosure by these investment alternatives.
Unlike mutual funds or exchange-traded funds, these pools of investment capital don't have to provide much in the way of transparency. True, they must register with the SEC if they are large enough, but beyond that they don't have to disclose much of anything. They don't have to disclose the amount of assets under management, list their biggest holdings or reveal investment returns. They don’t even have to disclose the identity of their senior managers.
The SEC should mandate public disclosure of the details mentioned above.
Now having said that, I don’t believe every investment fund should be required to disclose this information. Funds that just accept the money of a limited number of wealthy individuals can keep doing whatever it is they're doing behind the veil. But the SEC should mandate full disclosure for investment funds that accept money from public pensions, college endowments or not-for profit foundations. It also should require disclosure for funds in which the partners get a tax benefit from the carried-interest loophole, which lets them pay taxes on their earning at rates about half those on regular income.
This broader disclosure would accomplish at least three things:
- First, it would help prevent the sort of fraud that seems to occur so regularly in this space. Everyone knows about the high-profile cases like Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme; there are plenty of other examples of fraud in hedge funds, and occasionally private equity and venture capital, too. The requirement of audited financial statements from a well-qualified accounting firm might have blown the whistle on some or even most of the scams.
- Second, there is a huge funding gap between future obligations and assets among state pension funds: The shortfall is estimated at $1.28 trillion and is forecast to get bigger. These pensions have had widespread exposure to so-called alternative investments, mostly to their detriment. More comprehensive disclosures would allow better and more informed decision-making.
- Third, a broader data set would help quantitative managers, allocators and academics to create a robust set of analytical tools to assess closely held investment funds. It is an area that is crying out for a review to determine how and where value is created and how investors should risk their capital. Just imagine what the academic world could do with that rich vein of information.
Those with libertarian leanings will argue that these are private pools of capital whose limited partners are sophisticated and the funds themselves are designed for accredited investors with the means, professional staff and self-interest to investigate the data themselves. Thus, there is no need for costly regulatory paternalism; the private market will work itself out.
That might sound good in theory, but decades of data demonstrate it does not work in practice. Institutional investing is staffed with humans who make all of the same errors as individuals, just within a more sophisticated and typically more costly framework. Pension funds and endowments all show a discomforting tendency to chase expensive investments after a period of good performance -- and all too often after the hot streak is over. We have a looming retirement crisis in this country, and greater transparency and disclosure will only help led to better and more informed investing decisions.
This column was provided by Bloomberg News.