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Private Equity Valuation: A Significant Decision

By Joseph Bartlett

Insiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention by Carl Kaplan, who (while confessing he is a cynic, claims he is not the ultimate cynic). The case is In Re Allied Capital Corp., CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down – all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.

The Court first noted that the SEC has provided “some guidance” to business development companies, which are closed end mutual funds organized under special provisions of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and operating as if they were private equity funds. Presumably Judge Lynch was applying a bit of irony when he mentioned “some guidance” since he quoted the SEC's interpretation in Accounting Series Release 118 as follows:

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