The recent move by the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (MassPRIM) to reduce their exposure to fund of hedge funds and initiate a direct hedge fund investment program highlights the trend by institutional investors to bypass fund of funds for direct hedge fund investments. In addition to MassPRIM, the $23 billion Employees Retirement System of Texas, the $76 billion Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and the $2.5 billion Texas Permanent School Fund have all begun to lay the groundwork for direct investment programs as well. The charts below illustrate the trend towards direct hedge fund placements:

Cloud has been the buzzword for some time in technology. I’m delighted to have recently joined IntraLinks, which has been leading the charge since the beginning. That’s why it was great to see the article and the followup blog post in The New York Times last Friday that discussed the growing adoption of Cloud Services in B2B and the awareness around the benefits of cloud computing.

It is always interesting to attend a conference in a totally different role from the one you had when you were last there. It is even more interesting when the conference itself undergoes a dramatic change as a result of an industry crisis or major event. Such was the case when I recently attended the American Securitization Forum’s (ASF) annual 2011 conference in Orlando, FL. At its peak, the ASF conference was held in Las Vegas and was a raucous event attended by thousands of bankers, investors, lawyers and vendors. At that time, I was working at Standard & Poor’s and responsible for commercializing S&P’s structured finance analytical models and data. Now, the tenor at the conference is much more subdued as most panel sessions focus on how to revive many of the asset backed securities markets that essentially imploded in 2008 and have yet to show any significant recovery more than two years later. And my new role is heading up the Debt Capital Market (DCM) efforts for IntraLinks.

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.