Buyouts staff

Nicolas Rohatyn, CEO of the The Rohatyn Group, discusses the risks and rewards of investing in emerging markets

“Super LP” Chris Douvos, a managing director at Venture Investor Associates, talks in this video about the firm’s approach to fund-of-funds investing. Despite the name, the firm invests not only in VC but also growth equity and buyouts, a segment where Douvos says it favors lower-mid-market managers.

Megan McElroy, vice president at North Sky Capital, talks in this video about the Minneapolis firm’s fund of funds program, which is focused these days on cleantech and lower mid-market buyouts.

Lincoln Singleton, a managing director at boutique mid-market investment bank Evercore Partners, talks in this video about his work as a placement agent in the firm’s private funds group.

Kevin Nee, the president of Wilshire Private Markets, talks in this video about the ways the Santa Monica-based fund-of-funds shop, a 40-member group within Wilshire Associates, evaluates candidates for investments, 65 percent of which are LBO funds run by mid-market and small-market managers. Wilshire doesn’t want to be an index of private equity, Nee says. “We want to do something for our clients that they can’t do on their own.”

Even as many investors move into index funds, Harvard University is confident that it can keep posting above-average returns with actively managed investments, the head of the school’s investment arm said on Wednesday.

Maurice Gordon, senior investment principal at Guardian Life Insurance, talks in this video about the company’s $1 billion in commitments to a diverse private equity portfolio, some 60 percent of which is dedicated to buyouts, mostly smaller funds.

Bo Ramsey, a senior investment analyst at the Indiana Public Retirement System, discusses the agency’s approach to develop a well rounded private equity portfolio. The agency, with $25 billion of assets under management, has a 10 percent allocation to the asset class.

Philip Godfrey, a partner at San Francisco-based fund of funds manager Bay Hills Capital, talks in this video about his firm’s exclusive focus on small to mid-market buyout funds with less than $1 billion under management. The firm, he says favors focused portfolios, primarily in North America, of firms investing in companies with less than $250 million in enterprise value

Karen Rode, a partner at Hewitt EnnisKnupp, talks in this video about her firm, a private equity team and investment consultant within the larger consulting firm AON plc, an insurer and risk management expert. Within the private equity group, the firm has been investing $1 billion a year on average for the past five years, either making commitments or advising clients, to strategies including infrastructure, standard buyouts, venture, mezzanine and debt strategies.