Jennifer Harris

The Blackstone Group refused a request from the US Securities and Exchange Commission for more information on fund performance and bonus compensation, arguing that information about individual IRRs is not 'a meaningful measurement of our results of operations'.

The US' Financial Accounting Standards Board has released a list of seven indicators of inactive markets, and given firms the green light to use their own valuation methodologies when quoted prices are unreliable.

Senator Carl Levin’s Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act would pose problems for GPs and LPs alike.

The International Monetary Fund is calling for more regulation on private equity and hedge funds, which it says fall into a 'shadow banking system', while the EVCA told its members a system of registration is in the works in the EU.

The Obama administration has built into its carried interest tax revenue forecast an expectation that GPs will eventually find ways of avoiding the full impact of the new tax.

President Obama included language in his budget released yesterday that would tax carried interest as income at 39.6 percent. In other regulatory news, a bill in Congress would also require all advisors to private equity funds to register with the SEC.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board in the US will improve its guidance on fair value and its disclosure standards, following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s suggestion.

Former Blackstone partner and Saul Steinberg protegee Henry Silverman will become the firm’s first chief operating officer. In 2007, he sold the reportedly now insolvent real estate company Realogy to Apollo for $8.5bn.

A Senate bill sponsored by Chuck Grassley and Carl Levin would require all private funds to publicly disclose the identities of their LPs, as well as the value of their assets under management, if the bill passes.

Gwyneth Ketterer, one of the highest ranking women in private equity, will leave her post as COO at Irving Place Capital, formerly Bear Stearns Merchant Banking.