St. Paul VC Loses $109M

Noticeably absent from the private market transparency debate have been corporate venture investors. Why? Because most of these folks have been publicly disclosing their performance results ever since inception.

The most recent example is St. Paul Venture Capital (SPVC), a $3 billion investment manager affiliated with, and solely funded by, insurance group St. Paul Cos.

According to a third quarter earnings release from St. Paul Cos., SPVC suffered Q3 pre-tax net realized losses of $109 million. This total included $56 million on the sale to Lexington Partners of SPVC’s indirect investments in third-party venture capital funds, which had a carrying value of $126 million (See PE Week 9/26). In addition to generating $70 million, the secondaries sale also took $77 million of future funding commitments off the books.

The SPVC direct investment portfolio was valued at $581 million at the end of Q3, compared with a cost basis of $617 million. The group, which maintains multiple offices, is currently investing out of a $1.3 billion fund raised in 2000. Among SPVC’s third quarter investments were funding rounds for Bitfone Corp., Disc Dynamics, BigFix Inc., HireRight Inc. and Carparts Technologies Inc.

Contact Dan Primack