[chollida1]

Fidelity has just marked its shares down from $30.72 at the end of June to $22.91 for the end of September.

To be fair, I think these markdowns have more to do with who is investing than the companies themselves.

VC's do portfolio valuations much less frequently than mutual funds, PE firms or hedge funds do and they give less negative scrutiny to the valuation than the aforementioned firms do, the reason for this....

... is VC firm's typically don't allow redemptions on monthly intervals which means they can keep an unrealistic valuation for longer where as Hedge funds, PE firms and mutual funds, who typically allow monthly redemption, need to properly value each holding at the end of each month.

I mean if you are a VC, do you care if you don't write down Snap-chat at the end of the month, you really have no incentive to do so?

You get paid on a quarterly basis on the size of your portfolio, why mark it down until you are absolutely certain that it needs to be marked down, this point is usually not until you actually go to sell, be it IPO or private equity deal.

However, if you are a hedge fund and someone wants to redeem their assets, you want to make sure you value Snap-chat for what you can realistically sell if for as that's essentially what you are doing when you allow someone to redeem their funds from your firm.

With people pulling money out of hedge funds, and PE firms on a monthly basis, this makes you have to pay attention to valuations on a much more granular time frame than historically VC firms would have.

[surfearth]

No PE firms allow quarterly redemptions in traditional fund vehicles. PE firms and VC firms use precisely the same legal structure and are both generally required to value assets and report to partners on a quarterly basis. Some PE larger PE firms will have quarterly/semi-annual audits, but most PE and VC firms audit their financial statements (and thus valuations) annually.

Also note that most funds calculate fees on committed capital during the investment period (typically five years) and subsequently on invested cost, not fair value, afterword. Therefore the portfolio valuation has little to do with management fee calculations.

[roymurdock]

Thanks for the explanation of the different incentive structures for VCs vs. mutual/hedge funds.

Can you explain where large mutual funds get the money that they invest in the late rounds of these private companies? Is it mostly institutional/pension/retirement funds?

Who is losing when Fidelity writes down a late stage investment in a private company? I'm assuming the fund manager, but do the investors lose as well, or will they only lose if it causes a panic/bank rush with all investors clamoring to withdraw from the fund asap?