Publications
& Policy

Detailed evidence and analysis of the European private equity and venture capital industry’s real contribution to employment, in 2019, and job creation, in 2018-19, and the far-reaching impact this has on the people, societies and economies of Europe.

In this response we share our view that ESMA has generally had a positive role on supervisory convergence, although it should not necessarily receive new powers. We also comment that some changes could be made to the ESAs governance to make it able to take decisions in gold-plating cases (like AIFMD fees and charges) and that direct supervision is generally not welcomed.

In this consultation response, which is part of our ongoing efforts on seeking clarification on the application of SFDR, we have stressed the importance of ensuring coherence and alignment between different levels of reporting under EU law and asked the European regulators to introduce an element of proportionality into the reporting of Taxonomy alignment by asset managers.

University of St. Gallen: "We find that limited partners overweigh their investments with fund managers domiciled in the same geographical region by 45% on average. The home bias in local fund manager selection holds across investor types, fund characteristics as well as market regions."

The Invest Europe Annual Report provides a comprehensive overview of our activities across arguably our most challenging year yet: 2020. Whether in Political advocacy, Industry Data & Research, Communication, Conferences & events, Industry excellence & training and Finance & administration, our secretariat has been hard at work to address and pre-empt members’ needs.

The most comprehensive analysis of fundraising, investment and divestment trends with data on more than 1,600 European private equity and venture capital firms, the 2020 statistics cover 89% of the €708bn in capital under management in Europe.

In this response we reminded the European Commission about the importance of making changes to the investor categorisation, we explained the relevance of the ELTIF framework and we provided our support to rules that appropriately take into consideration both the nature of investors and of the funds that are marketed to them.

In this response, we have shared our views on the European Commission’s initiative to review the VAT rules for financial services. We stressed that the European Commission must preserve and strengthen the VAT exemption for fund management, as it is essential for EU based private equity funds, and the EU economy and EU businesses depending on their investments.

"Private equity firms have increased their participation in the US health care system, raising questions about incentive alignment and downstream effects on patients."

In our response to the European Commission feasibility assessment on the establishment of an SME Referral Scheme we express our concerns around the functioning and benefits of such a scheme. We outline the characteristics that make PE and VC funding different to justify why this type of funding is not interchangeable with bank financing and why we fear the scheme could give this mistaken idea to SMEs. Therefore, even though we fully support the objectives of increasing funding options and awareness of PE and VC funding for SMEs we do not believe a referral scheme would be the best way to do so.

In this webinar Stephen Ziff, Partner & Co-Head of Investor Relations and Fundraising at Coller Capital, moderated a discussion on the impact on organisations, how private equity is adapting to this changing paradigm and how investors are effectively deploying capital in the current environment.

"The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has launched a report highlighting the need for financial institutions to have access to consistent non-financial reporting from corporates to be able to support the transition to a low-carbon economy."

In this response, we have stressed that funds and fund managers should not be included in the scope of a potential digital levy proposal, and that a potential EU proposal should be consistent with OECD work and not be pushed forward while work is still ongoing on OECD proposals.

University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Georgia State University: "We draw on new data and theory to examine how private market contracts adapt to serve multiple goals, particularly the social-benefit goals that impact funds add to their financial goals."

As investors in innovative and high-growth companies and start-ups, we find it crucial that a tax regime for the 21st century encourages and supports the innovation and research needed for the green and digital transition and the recovery of the European economy after the COVID-19 crisis.