Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

Pindar Wong There is a crisis in governance. I’m not talking about bitcoin, but Brexit. Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) is not so much a technical crisis between a ‘hard fork’ and a ‘soft fork’ but a legitimacy crisis. Yet the solution to its core dilemma — politically deciding between a ‘Hard Brexit’ and a ‘Soft Brexit’ — may actually lay in harnessing blockchain technology’s great potential as an economic governance system for the digital age. One thing’s clear: the current system is failing. The impasse in Britain requires a radical rethink. Unless even more time is requested by the UK, and unanimously granted by all 27 member states of the EU, the default option is for the UK to chaotically crash out from the European trade bloc, by leaving without a legal agreement, on Friday, April 12. As laws have borders, this lack of ‘legal certainty’ is particularly troubling as it risks disrupting cross-border supply chain networks which would be ba...

Political uncertainty has made investors pause By Joice Alves Fundraising for European buyouts has hit its worst quarter since 2010 as the divorce between the UK and European Union has fuelled a sharp decline in investors’ appetite for UK-dedicated funds. Fund managers have struggled to keep pace with the record volumes of cash raised for the asset class last year, writes FN ’s sister publication  Private Equity News.  Both capital-raising and the number of fund closings fell in the third quarter, according to LP Source, a data provider owned by FN and  PEN ’s publisher Dow Jones. Buyout fundraising dropped 68% to $7.9bn across 33 funds in the third quarter, down from $24.6bn raised by 46 funds during the same period last year. Fundraising also declined one-fifth during the first half of this year to $46.6bn, down from $67.8bn in the corresponding part of 2017. The figures represents the worst third quarter for European buyout fundraising sinc...