Tim Goddard
Great. Thanks, Matt. All really useful stuff, guys. I really appreciate that. We're now going go to Q & A from our audience. So if you do have a question, please go ahead and send that through the window there on your right. Get us started, here's one that came in the ... I think it'd be interesting for each of you to answer to the extent that you're able. Maybe we'll start with you, Renee, but I think there might be some confusion among a lot of CEOs here. Where does the money that, we talk a lot about how much money there is out in the private equity world, where does that come from for you guys?
Rene Stewart
Sure. So we get almost all of our funding from institutional investors. And that includes endowments of universities, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds. If you look at just through our pension investors alone, we serve over 50% of US pensioners by count. And through those pension investors, we're serving over 50% of teachers, and 40% of public safety employees. So firefighters, policemen, just in the US through the capital that we invest. And so we obviously worked very hard to make sure that we're successful in returning capital for those who serve the community really well.
Tim Goddard
Absolutely. And, Jeremy, how about you guys at Riverside?
Jeremy Holland
Yeah, the same, our investors are all of those sources that she mentioned as well as university endowments, insurance companies, very diverse. I think what's important to know also though is that we put our money where our mouth is. A significant percentage of this is our our own dollars invested alongside our investors. And the final point being that they should know a traditional private equity fund, all of those on the line today have full discretion over the capitol.
So while we provide those pensioners, or work hard to provide those pensioners a good return, ultimately we're the ones writing the checks so and have the ability to make that final investment decision. So when we commit to make an investment, that is the final decision. There's no other party that we have to go back to for a final approval.
Tim Goddard
And, Matt, at Alpine is it about the same or are there some differences?
Matt Rung
Yeah, I'd say it's a similar mix. But maybe a couple of things to add to what Rene and Jeremy have said. And Jeremy was kind of alluding to this point. There's a variety of private equity firms, quote unquote private equity firms out there that don't have their own fund. And that they're typically called independent sponsors or fundless sponsors.
As Jeremy said, when you have a fund you can write the check, you have discretion over investing the money. If it's an independent sponsor or fundless sponsor you're speaking with where they don't have a fund, they're going to have to go back to their investors, maybe friends and family that they know to try to raise the money. And what that ultimately means is certainty a close is going to be much lower when you're talking with an independent or a fundless sponsor because they have to go get approval from someone else.
So something for sellers to be thinking about when they're evaluating their options and Corum as an advisor will help you through that and point out which ones do have committed funds and which ones don't.
Yeah. So That's definitely something we've found. And the big problem, sometimes you can make those deals work, but the trouble is you kind of have to do the sale twice, which means all the risks and pitfalls sort of happened twice and it can be difficult.
This is a segment from the February 2019 edition of the Tech M&A Monthly webcast "Private Equity Roundtable 2019." For more information on Tech M&A processes, opportunities and more, visit the Tech M&A Resource Center.