Thursday, August 14, 2008

U.S. Listed Private Equity

In case you didn't know, there is a U.S. Listed Private Equity ETF. The problem is that many of the companies on the list are not even really private equity firms. For example, Capital Source does provide loans to private equity backed companies but that is just one of its activities. Other companies on the list are private equity management companies such as Blackstone. You are buying a stake in the management firm, not in the private equity portfolio. In other cases, for example, Ares Capital, the firm is mainly making loans, not taking equity. At a quick glance, the following included firms do seem to be genuine private equity investments:

ald
bkcc
codi
cswc
gain
htgc
icge
kcap
mcgc
mvc
pcap
pnnt
psec
sfe
tiny

I'm already a shareholder in MVC. I may look into the remainder of these in a little while.

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