"The modern private equity industry got its start in 1979 when, for
the first time, a large, publicly traded company was taken private in a
leveraged buyout. For the next 30 plus years, the
industry escaped regulatory oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) by adopting complex and opaque organizational structures designed for
that purpose. That changed with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act in the wake of the recent financial crisis.
Since 2012 most mid-size and large private equity funds have been required to
disclose their activities to the SEC. Last week reports of what the SEC found
began to leak out.
Staff at the SEC has reviewed
about 400 private equity funds. What did they learn?"
