VC Industry Angry Over Geithner Oversight Plan
TechCrunch
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plans to increase the regulatory oversight of private investment has the VC industry up in arms, TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid says, citing an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal that claims venture capital firms pose almost no systemic risk to financial markets and the global economy.

The Journal piece points out that the $30 billion invested in venture capital each year is barely a blip on the radar, representing less than 0.1% of all financial transactions in the U.S. VC firms also use almost no debt, eliminating the negative effects of over-leveraged investments. Surely, Geithner has bigger fish to fry …

Kincaid wonders whether Geithner is simply trying to close a loophole for hedge funds and other private equity funds looking to avoid disclosure by reclassifying assets as venture investments. If that’s the case, and Geithner is really only worried about those funds that are so large and highly leveraged, Kincaid reckons that “98% of venture funds really don’t have anything to worry about.” Nevertheless, if he does plan on imposing an asset threshold to the regulatory requirements, “some clarity on what those thresholds will be would be nice.” – Read the whole story…