NEWSLETTER of June 17, 2022

The following content has been added at finexpert:

UBS
GLOBAL FAMILY OFFICE REPORT 2022
UBS, the world’s leading wealth manager, today announced the launch of the Global Family Office Report 2022, which surveys 221 single family offices around the world. The report is the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, with the family offices surveyed averaging a total net worth of USD 2.2 billion. The report shows that family offices globally are in a new era of strategic asset allocation (“SAA”) as high inflation, central bank liquidity and rising interest rates compel them to review their investment options. They are reducing fixed income allocations and increasing investments in private equity, real estate, and private debt, sacrificing liquidity for returns. >more

ECB
EUROPE’S GROWING LEAGUE OF SMALL CORPORATE BOND ISSUERS: NEW PLAYERS, DIFFERENT GAME DYNAMICS
While historically only very large firms issued in the European corporate bond market, recent years have seen the entry of many new players: small, private, and unrated issuers. Firm-level data show these new players face different game dynamics. They are disconnected from aggregate market movements and still depend heavily on banks. A better understanding of the differences between new and more established corporate bond issuers could help us identify policy implications for financial stability, capital markets development, and growth. >more
 

Neuberger Berman
INVESTING IN INFRASTRUCTURE
Investors are increasingly seeking out infrastructure opportunities offering portfolio diversification and relatively stable cash flows generated from real assets. They are finding huge demand for their capital: As of March 2022, the G20’s Global Infrastructure Outlook initiative estimates that current investment will leave the world with a $15 trillion infrastructure funding gap by 2040. As critical global infrastructure assets age, they need to be overhauled to allow global, national and local societies and economies to continue to function. Population growth, technological advances and changes in trade patterns are creating further demand for new infrastructure investment. In this paper, we assess the key attributes of infrastructure investments and the major investment themes being identified by governments and capital allocators alike. >more

Coller Capital
GLOBAL PRIVATE EQUITY BAROMETER: SUMMER 2022
We are pleased to share our 36th Coller Capital Global Private Equity Barometer and its associated press release. Coller Capital's Barometer is a unique snapshot of global trends in private equity – a twice-yearly overview of the plans and opinions of Limited Partners worldwide. This edition contains findings on: LPs’ private equity vs public equity portfolio performance, achievability of LPs’ private equity target returns, LP views on alternative sources of PE fund capital, LP commitments to funds investing in GP management companies, and ESG’s role as a value driver. >more

CMS
UPDATE ARBEITSRECHT JUNI 2022
The German Federal Ministry of Justice recently presented a draft bill on the implementation of the EU Whistleblower Directive, after the implementation deadline of December 17, 2021 had passed. The draft implements the announcements made in the coalition agreement of the traffic light government. In our focus article, we give you a comprehensive overview of what is likely to come your way in the near future. But that's not all: the European Working Conditions Directive, which aims to provide uniform information to employees on the essential aspects of the employment relationship within the EU, must also be implemented by August 1, 2022. Accordingly, the German government has recently presented a draft bill that provides for changes to the Evidence Act in particular. In our blog section, we provide information on what employers must observe in the future and what specific need for action exists, particularly for employment contracts. >more

PRIVATE COMPANY VALUATIONS BY MUTUAL FUNDS
Vikas Agarwal, Brad M. Barber, Si Cheng, Allaudeen Hameed, and Ayako Yasuda
2022
Mutual fund families set and report values of their private startup holdings, which affect the fund net asset value (NAV) at which investors buy/sell fund shares. We test three hypotheses related to the valuation practice: (i) information cost/access, (ii) litigation risk, and (iii) strategic NAV management. Consistent with (i), families with larger PE holdings and/or stronger information access update valuations more frequently in the absence of public information releases, their updates co-move less with other families, and their fund returns jump less at follow-on financings. We find no support for hypotheses (ii) or (iii). We also find that high-PE-exposure funds are subject to greater financial fragility. >more

THE RISE OF FINANCE COMPANIES AND FINTECH LENDERS IN SMALL BUSINESS LENDING
Manasa Gopal, and Philipp Schnabl
2022
We document that finance companies and FinTech lenders increased lending to small businesses after the 2008 financial crisis. We show that most of the increase substituted for a reduction in lending by banks. In counties where banks had a larger market share before the crisis, finance companies and FinTech lenders increased their lending more. By 2016, the increase in finance company and FinTech lending almost perfectly offset the decrease in bank lending. We control for firms' credit demand by examining lending by different lenders to the same firm, by comparing firms within the same narrow industry, and by comparing firms pledging the same type of collateral. Consistent with the substitution of bank lending with finance company and FinTech lending, we find that reduced bank lending had no effect on employment, wages, new business creation, or business expansion. Our results show that finance companies and FinTech lenders are major suppliers of credit to small businesses and played an important role in the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. >more