Conversations with Mike: Meet Mike

by goksor

Rasmus: Hello, my name is Rasmus Goksor, and I am co-founder of Bison. We are a new online platform that brings firm level private equity and venture capital data to LPs in a fresh way. I am sitting down with my co-founder, Mike Nugent, for the first in a series of conversations that will highlight the private equity and venture capital markets. Today, I want to focus on Mike’s previous experiences in the financial markets. Thanks for taking the time to speak, Mike.

Mike: Thanks, Rasmus – I’m more than happy to.

Rasmus: So I’d like to start out by discussing your background. Where did you start working?

Mike: So I actually started out in the public markets – Merrill Lynch, Prudential Securities and then the NASDAQ Stock Market in Washington DC. After NASDAQ, I went to Business School at Boston College.  And had started my PE career by interning with Everest Ventures, which was the outsourced fund of funds team for Bessemer Trust.

When I completed my MBA, I joined HarbourVest, who is the industry pioneer for private equity fund of funds. They have more than $30B in active assets. I joined them in 2001 and was there for a few years. Over that time I worked on a number of primary and secondary deals.

Rasmus: Interesting, let’s get back to discussing the differences between the public markets and alternatives investment markets in a later conversation.  Before we continue, maybe you can quickly go into the distinction between primary and secondary deals?

Mike: Originally, I focused on primary deals, which means investing in newly formed funds. The secondary market is buying and selling existing limited partnership interests who are already in market from/to other limited partners.

Rasmus: That makes sense. So what happened after HarbourVest?

Mike: I left HarbourVest to help run a company in New Hampshire where I learned that the old line manufacturing wasn’t for me, so I came back into the industry as a consultant, essentially running due diligence for the eastern half of the United States and monitoring client investments in Europe.

Rasmus: So some good operating experience and then back into the mix, but you got back into investing soon again, correct?

Mike: Yes. While doing the consulting work, I was recruited to SVG Advisors.  SVG Advisors is a London-based fund of funds and the parent company, SVG Capital,  a listed PE trust on the LSE (London Stock Exchange).  I would lead the due diligence across the Americas; anything from early stage VC to large buyouts. Over the 4+ years I was there, I completed a lot of deals.

Rasmus: Excellent. Great stuff Mike. Sounds like a lot of first-hand industry experience and a lot of exposure on the LP side of the business. During our next conversation, let’s talk a bit more about a day in the life at SVG.  What did you do?

Mike:  Looking forward to it!