Simon Thornton, @PEARonlineSimon
Over the years, I’ve moderated panels at leading conferences seeking to uncover the funnier side of private equity. These panels, including most recently Call My Private Equity Fundraising Bluff, have given some of the industry’s most entertaining characters a chance to shine.
Within PEARonline Perspectives, we want to give everyone a platform to share their entertaining experiences, and we’re going to begin that with “GPs Say The Craziest Things!!!”. We’ve all heard other GPs say crazy things when fundraising (obviously, we have never said any of them ourselves…), and we want you to help us find the three best.
The three best that we have heard are
- It’s a ten-year fund
- Yes, SouthWest is my favorite airline too
- Of course that’s a hard cap
But we know you can do better, and we want to give you the chance to share, and to choose the best. Please leave a reply below to submit your suggestions by 3 February. Then we’ll pick the best and on 6 Feb, you can come back and vote for your top three. Live voting will take place at SuperReturn US West on Wednesday 8 Feb, and we’ll publish the results here on Thursday 9.
So start sharing, and sign up for blog updates on the right side of the page to ensure you know when voting starts and the results are posted.
My best moment was the Dutch GP who got up as his partner was about to deliver his half of the pitch and said ” I’ve heard all this shit before” and walked out (to go to the lavatory as it turned out, but the Dutch sense of humour was lost on the potential investor!)
My other favourite wasn’t a GP so doesn’t really count but I heard the following in a meeting and choked on my biscuit: “they dipped their toes in the water and got their fingers burned”! I still puzzle as to how this might have happened. Were they holding an electric fire while getting in the bath…? One can only guess.
There are too many such comments that could not be repeated in this forum.
However, most memorable was more signals, than saying:
An early morning video conference set up to introduce a client to an international GP had the Managing Partner enthusiastically spouting on their recent deals. He seemed to have forgotten that he was on VC, as had his team, since the team behind him were repeatedly shaking their heads and slitting their throats (figuratively). My client did not commit.
With one of my clients, it wasn’t so much the crazy things that the GP said, but more what he didn’t say! This GP was having a bad morning and decided not to speak the entire meeting. Luckily his other partner took over and led the discussion. The concerned LP called me the next day asking if they had done something wrong…..
I was going to suggest “my fund is top quartile”. But then almost every fund is top quartile according to its GP and placement agent, so I suppose that it’s not a crazy thing to say at all….