The big issues

There were smiles throughout the newsroom when Mary Jo White – outgoing chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission – accepted pfm’s interview request.

Since its launch in 2004, private funds management and its predecessors Private Equity Manager and PEI Manager have strived to help private fund managers navigate changing times. We had been looking for a way to mark our 150th edition; who better to give us her view on the changing regulatory landscape than the person who spent the last four years presiding over much of that change at the head of the private fund industry’s most relevant regulator?

We later found out that ours was one of only three interviews White had agreed to do, having received 12 invitations; happy birthday to us indeed. It was just over a month after she left the agency, and she appeared to be settling back into life in the private sector well (and enjoying a much shorter commute to work now she’s based back in her long-term home of New York.) Our discussion with White forms the centerpiece of a 150th edition special on p. 16.

We also get perspective from two veterans who have never shied away from the operational challenge of running a global private equity firm. Riverside chief executives Béla Szigethy and Stewart Kohl talk to us about how both the private equity industry and fund operations were changed by the financial crisis, a sink or swim time for the industry. And lawyers from Goodwin share their views on how legal issues in the private fund space have evolved over the years.

This month’s issue also includes a tax special, which brought back memories of an old UK television commercial. Broadcast by the British tax authority in a bid to “encourage” people to file their tax returns, it ended with the slogan “tax doesn’t have to be taxing.” The UK’s system was, and remains, archaic and complicated, and President Trump is arguing the same of the US set-up, which is why he has vowed to overhaul it. But, like with many of the proposals he’s put forward, at the time of going to press the details and their precise impact on the private funds industry are sparse. We delve into the potential changes with Debevoise tax partner Matthew Saronson (p. 42).

We also look at the Bipartisan Budget Act, which enables the Internal Revenue Service to collect tax at a partnership level, and the proposals for its enforcement put forward by the US Treasury in January (p. 36). And, as the UK prepares to implement BEPS Action 4, we get an update on how successful the private fund industry has been in lobbying for better treatment under the OECD’s sweeping tax initiative (p. 40).

Enjoy the edition

Claire Wilson
Editor, pfm
claire.w@peimedia.com