| |
Privacy Statement
Revised as of March 2009
I. Client Personal & Financial Information
When you choose to invest with Stevenson Partners Holdings, Inc. and its affiliate funds ("Stevenson Partners") you not only entrust us with making your private equity investments, but also with your personal and financial data. Just as we are dedicated to maximizing your total return and providing excellent client service, we are also committed to respecting your privacy and protecting the information you give to us.
We understand that it is our obligation to maintain the confidentiality of information with regard to our investors. As a consequence, we do not disclose any non-public personal information about our investors or former investors to anyone other than our affiliates and service providers, except as permitted by law and consistent with industry practice. Consistent with such industry practice we will continue to distribute certain personally identifiable financial information to all investors in each specific fund. In addition, we may distribute certain information regarding our investors to unaffiliated third parties as described below.
In order to accurately and efficiently conduct each fund's investment program, we collect, and may disclose to our affiliates and service providers (e.g., our attorneys, accountants, etc.) on a "need to know" basis, certain non-public personal information about you from the following sources:
1. Information we receive from you as set forth in your subscription agreement, investor questionnaire or similar forms, such as your name, address, and tax identification (or social security) number; and
2. Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates and service providers, or others, such as your participation in each of our funds, your capital account balance, contributions and distributions.
We restrict access to non-public personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide services to the fund and its investors. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your non-public personal information.
II. Private Equity Investments Confidential Information
The management teams of companies in which we invest provide us with confidential strategic and financial information about their respective companies as well as other sensitive information ("Confidential Information"). Just as we are committed to respecting our clients' privacy and protecting the information our clients' give to us, we are equally committed to protecting the Confidential Information provided to us. As such, we do not disclose any information pertaining to our past, present or prospective portfolio investments without prior authorization.
We have long-term relationships with the financial intermediaries that provide us with access to investment opportunities for our clients and these same intermediaries deem the information that they provide to us as to be highly confidential. We do not ever want to compromise our clients' access to these investment opportunities or have the Confidential Information that we receive curtailed due to an inability or perceived inability on our part to keep the information we receive confidential. In addition, the management of our portfolio companies are bound, as are our clients, by confidentiality agreements to keep any Confidential Information received confidential.
It is our general policy to provide our clients with certain Confidential Information from time to time in an effort to keep our investors abreast of the developments surrounding our portfolio companies. Please note: Confidential Information disseminated to investors constitutes proprietary trade secrets of Stevenson Partners and the respective portfolio company or companies and disclosure of the trade secrets is likely to cause competitive harm for the following reasons:
1. The future of a portfolio company may be compromised and could cause competitive harm if privately held valuation information is publicly released.
2. The liquidity plans of a portfolio company may be compromised when privately held valuation information is publicly released.
III. Procedures for Handling Confidential Private Equity Data
Stevenson Partners, from time to time, may have public pension plans and endowment funds of public universities as clients ("Public Clients") that are subject to open records laws. While all of our clients are expected to keep all information about our managed entities confidential, from a practical standpoint, we understand that a Public Client may be required to disclose, pursuant to its state's open records law, data specific to its own capital account.
Open records laws generally require that a wide range of information held by public agencies be made available to the public upon request. The scope of these laws often covers the organizational documents of the private equity funds in which a public agency invests and the data set forth in periodic reports that a public agency receives as an investor in a private equity fund. Each state and the federal government have their own versions of open records laws, and these laws vary from one another in important ways that affect the release of Confidential Information.
Because open records laws vary greatly from state to state, a single approach with respect to the disclosure of Confidential Information to Public Clients may not be effective with respect to all Public Clients. In addition, the open records laws may negate the confidentiality agreement signed by a Public Client. Therefore, Stevenson Partners will take the following steps to protect Confidential Information from being disclosed by its Public Clients:
1. Public Clients will not be provided with Confidential Information to prevent such Confidential Information from becoming "public records." Confidential Information such as portfolio company data, third-party limited partner information, limited partnership documents and other sensitive information will no longer be supplied to Public Clients. Confidential Information such as portfolio company data and other sensitive information will only be supplied to Public Clients to the extent required by law or by the fund's legal documents.
2. With every dissemination of information, we will endeavor to mark the material as "confidential" and include a statement or letter justifying why the confidentiality of the information should be maintained. Marking all information as "confidential" provides important evidence of the intent to treat the information as confidential and supports a claim that the information is protected as trade secrets. Including a statement or letter justifying confidential treatment is required under some states' open records laws and may help our Public Clients fit information that we continue to provide about private equity funds such as fund size, commitments, draws, distributions, net asset value and/or internal rate of return into their own state's applicable exemption from disclosure.
We will provide you with annual notice of our privacy policy for as long as you maintain an investment with us. The policy may change from time to time, but you can always review our current policy by asking us for a copy.
|
