November closed with London’s first snow of the season and IntraLinks’ inaugural Client Symposium for Alternative Investments. The former slowed people down while the latter accelerated ideas on increasing investor satisfaction and reinvestment.

Clients from the Nordic and Alpine countries of Sweden and Switzerland made the trek to London to join their peers at the Symposium. In fact, four of Europe’s six largest private equity firms participated in the event. Not to be outdone, IntraLinks chief marketing officer Greg Kenepp and IntraLinks senior vice president of product management Wade Callison crossed the Atlantic to join the discussion.

I recently wrote an article for Hedge Fund Journal and asked the question, “Does having your investor letter or risk report leaked to the media (a.k.a. headline risk) hurt your ability to compete with other firms for allocations or is it just embarrassing?”

I would say both. However, for a magazine like HFJ I needed to answer the question more scientifically. I found a survey of investors conducted by Deutsche Bank. The survey showed that investors did in fact believe headline risk was damaging to a fund’s reputation and a deterrent to investing. What was even more interesting is the survey found that investors, particularly institutional investors, felt headline risk was more of a turnoff than invoking a gate, side pockets or changing liquidity terms.

Today’s challenging business environment has brought the importance of delivering world-class investor servicing sharply into focus. Institutional investors expect to access their statements and capital calls online, anytime, from anywhere, placing additional pressure on the related management and delivery mechanisms used by private equity firms.

The recent conference, Private Equity Software and Service Provider Showcase organized by 4VCO at the Renaissance Chancery Court hotel in London, therefore provided an excellent opportunity for 150 private equity professionals to gather for a day of presentations, information sharing and networking to understand how technology helps funds to improve internal systems and operations.

According to the French Private Equity Association (AFIC), €10 billion has been invested in the French private equity market over the last ten years. It's, therefore, unsurprising that private equity represents one of the main growth drivers for the French economy.

History has shown us that just one breach will sink a ship—whether it is a galleon in the Spanish Armada or the basketball “crew” Micheal Ray Richardson famously referred to in this post’s title. The Galleon scandal demonstrates the damage and even fatal blow an employee can inflict on a company with the firm’s confidential information. Galleon‘s alleged insider trading violations stem from an Intel employee faxing confidential sales and pricing information to the fund. In the two weeks since the story broke, Galleon has liquidated its $3.7B fund and Intel has hired a law firm to launch an internal investigation.

Virtually every fund has a binder that outlines the fund’s insider trading policies and procedures, However, a binder isn’t going to prevent information leaks—like an Intel employee faxing confidential data to Galleon. To protect confidential information, investors and livelihood, fund managers must implement security measures that: