New ILPA chair is UC Regents PE head

The Institutional Limited Partners Association has appointed Timothy Recker, who heads the private equity programme at the University of California Regents, as chairman.

Recker replaces outgoing chair Joncarlo Mark, senior portfolio manager in the alternative investment management programme at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. Mark's term as chairman expired, according to Kathy Jeramaz-Larson, executive director of ILPA.

The University of California Regents’ private equity programme has about $5 billion of assets under management. Prior to the Regents position, Recker was director of alternative investments for the Michigan Retirement System, where he was in charge of a $13 billion portfolio of private equity, hedge funds and structured products.

ILPA, a trade association for limited partners to private equity funds, has about 240 members that collectively control the vast majority of commitments to private equity funds around the world – some $1 trillion of private equity assets.

The ILPA board meets four times a year in person; recently the board has been working on a standard template for reporting that would make life easier for GPs. The goal is to increase uniformity and transparency in financial information provided to LPs.

The association also made John Breen, head of funds and secondaries with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, vice chairman; Jim Pittman, vice president, private equity with PSP Investments, was made treasurer; Dhvani Shah, managing director of private equity with the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, was appointed chairwoman of the education committee and Mike Mazzola, head of alternative investments with MetLife, was made chair of the research, benchmarking and standards committee.

New members appointed to the board this year include Jesus Arguelle, a portfolio manager with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System; Anja Bach Eriksson, senior portfolio manager with SAMPENSION and Robert van Schaik, head of private equity and infrastructure with Mn Services.

ILPA has played a major role in setting standards for private equity LPs that the organisation claims better aligns the GP/LP relationship. ILPA published a set of guidelines last year that call for everything from establishing a distribution “waterfall” that returns all contributed capital plus the preferred return to LPs before carry is paid, to contributing 100 percent of deal fees to the fund.

The ILPA guidelines have done their job in “promoting the conversation” between GPs and LPs when crafting limited partner agreements on funds about what principles are realistic and what won't work, Jeramaz-Larson said.

“We don't expect GPs to comply with, nor do we expect LPs to enforce, all the principles,” Jeramaz-Larson said.