Freedom of Information Litigation Puts the Spotlight on Valuation Practices
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
VC concern over efforts to compel public pension funds to disclose information regarding their private equity partners has largely focused on the release of internal rate of return statistics. A recent court ruling, however, suggests that the legal grounds for protecting the confidentiality of such data are tenuous at best. The more significant question is whether public pension funds can be forced to disclose their venture fund investees' valuations of individual portfolio companies. Public dissemination of that information would reveal the inconsistent (and possibly arbitrary) methods use to value companies.
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