PEI Staff

What follows is the prepared statement I gave at a House Small Business Committee hearing yesterday, on the subject of proposed reforms to Sarbanes-Oxley. Specifically, I wanted to talk about whether or not the new standards would lower compliance costs for small companies: Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member Chabot and Members of the Committee, my name is […]

I was at a private equity conference last week focused on issues of interest to Limited Partners. One of the things that struck me was several Limited Partners who described investing in private equity as “the search for alpha.” While in the past I have heard many Limited Partners talk about alpha, I have found […]

In a recent New York Times article, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman sounded exasperated: “Every day we have to scour the entirety of what’s available on YouTube, so we have to look for our stuff,” and added, “It is very difficult for us and places an enormous burden on us.” This overt frustration is not limited […]

Hold on to your wallets. Several tax changes have been bandied about recently aimed at raising revenue under new PAYGO rules adopted by the 110th Congress. One of them is the focus of a New York Times article, which would eliminate the offshore exemption for Unrelated Business Taxable Income (which is commonly dyslexically called “UBIT”) […]

In a recent article in The Financial Times, Harvard Business School Professor Josh Lerner closed his discussion on the performance of portfolios of private equity partnerships by noting: But a large portion of the differences [in the performance of private equity portfolios] seems due to simply superior decisions about funds to invest in, and which […]

Diana Ross may be fretting, but the Supremes are betting! Specifically, they are betting that their recent decision on patent protection won’t stifle innovation (as some critics have argued), but actually will increase the relevancy of intellectual property in the economy. The Supremes have recently issued four rulings which would seem to significantly narrow the […]

As a security industry vet and one of a handful of guys who developed the Cisco PIX Firewall (PIX is everywhere – if you are reading this from a computer at work, the text you’re reading most likely just traversed one), I can say with certainty that I am unable to protect myself from this sort […]

Just as private equity dominates news headlines today, the masters of the Wall Street universe 20 years ago were an investment bank (Drexel Burnham Lambert) and a form of debt with which the firm had become inextricably linked (the junk bond). They were fabulously successful for nearly 10 years, but Drexel’s high yield empire didn’t […]

Dear Readers (all 3 of you): Rather than waiting for Dan to fire my ass, I am voluntarily quitting blogging as I think I’m just too superficial and pollyanna to want to deal with the type of ire that some of my “random walks through Alexis’ brain” have provoked. No worries – my friends will […]

“Sell.” This is often my first thought when I see take-private offers announced (strategic or financial), and that was again the case with this week’s big deal. In an offer clearly designed to discourage any competition, News Corp. bid for Dow Jones the way the Rangers bid for A-Rod. It made me think of the old […]