How do venture capitalists inform their investors on the investment portfolio? An empirical investigation of the Belgian private equity market.

Venture capital investments are valued for a variety of reasons. In particular, venture capital managers periodically need to reconsider the valuation of the investment portfolio in view of their proper corporate disclosure activities. After all, investors in venture capital funds require such valuation information to assess the value of their investment in the venture capital fund and to appraise the performance of the venture capital fund's management. How the valuation is determined as well as what information disclosing the valuation process is reported remains obviously a controversial subject. Nonetheless, one can identify two distinct levels of guidance regarding the valuation and reporting problem with which venture capitalists are confronted. On the one hand, they are subject, just as any other company, to the accounting and corporate regulation. On the other hand, a set of more detailed and specific guidelines was issued by the industry itself. Whereas an earlier study (Thoen, 2002) discussed in detail the precise consequences following from this double set of prescriptions and recommendations for practitioners, the objective of the present study was to examine the actual business practice. In fact, we were interested in testing the extent to which Belgian venture capitalists comply with both sets of requirements and guidelines. Therefore, an empirical study was carried out by means of a survey, the main results of which are discussed here.Accounting; Companies; Disclosure; Empirical study; Industry; Information; Investment; Investment portfolio; Investments; Management; Managers; Market; Performance; Portfolio; Processes; Recommendations; Regulation; Reporting; Requirements; Studies; Valuation; Value; Venture capital;

Valuing entrepreneurial investments: the venture capitalists' approach.

Valuing high-growth, high-uncertainty firms, characterised by a unique business concept, significant growth opportunities, and/or no real positive cash flows to show the profit potential of the venture, is a major challenge faced by most venture capitalists (Gompers (1995)). Unlike for an investment in publicly traded securities for which there exists a well-defined pricing mechanism, it is difficult to find an objective valuation for the investment holdings of a venture capital fund. The valuation of individual unquoted investments is, thus, a very complicated process. subject to the discretion and judgment from the part of the venture capitalist. Recently, growing criticism and increasing interest are observed regarding the valuation of the private equity and venture capital portfolios of high-tech, high risk, high growth venture investments (EVCA (2001), Millner (2002), Blaydon & Horvath (2002)). Consequently, the underlying goal of the empirical analyses included in this paper corresponds exactly with revealing the valuation methodology operated by venture capitalists when determining or reconsidering the valuation for each venture investment held in portfolio.Cash flow; Firms; Investment; Investment portfolio; Investments; Opportunities; Portfolio; Pricing; Processes; Risk; Studies; Valuation; Valuation method; Venture capital;

Waarom de landschapsgeschiedenis vandaag niet aux sérieux wordt genomen: een pleidooi voor een 'sociaal-regionale' benadering: een subjectieve kijk op de evolutie van de historische geografie

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Performance of digital silicon photomultipliers for time of flight PET scanners

The performance of Digital Silicon Photomultipliers (dSiPM) coupled to a LYSO array containing 15×15 pixels with a size of 2×2×22 mm3 is evaluated to determinate their potential for whole body Time of Flight (TOF) PET scanners. The detector pixels are smaller in size than the light sensors and therefore light spreading is required to determine the crystal where interaction occurred. A light guide of 1 mm was used to spread the light and neighbor logic (NL) configuration were employed to ensure correct crystals identification. We studied the energy resolution and coincidence resolving time (CRT) for different trigger levels. The measured average energy resolution across detector was 14.5 %. Prior to measurements of time resolution skew time calibration of dSiPM was performed. The average CRT achieved using trigger level 1 option was 376 ps FWHM. Finally, we studied the amount of events that are disregarded due to dark count effects for different trigger levels and temperatures. Our studies show that a trade-off must be made between the detector’s CRT and sensitivity due to its vulnerability to dark counts. To employ dSiPM in TOF PET systems without 1:1 coupling effective cooling is necessary to limit dark count influence