New York State Common Retirement Fund agreed to pay as much as $350 million for Vista Equity Partners fund stakes tied to late billionaire Robert Brockman, an original investor in the private equity firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
The pension fund for New York state workers is buying part of the $1.46 billion portfolio held by Point Investments, while Ardian SAS is considering buying a stake that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private transaction. The pension has previously committed $5 billion to Vista funds, and it would pay a 35% discount to the value of the Point stake, the people said.
Prosecutors alleged Brockman controlled Point, a Bermuda-based entity, and used it to engage in the largest tax-evasion scheme by an individual in US history. Brockman, who died in 2022 before going to trial, denied wrongdoing and said he didn’t control Point. Months before his death, Point filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, and it’s now liquidating assets, court filings show.
Jefferies Financial Group Inc. is the broker on the Point deals, the people said. As with other secondaries sales, Vista must approve any buyers of stakes in their funds.
Representatives for Vista, Jefferies and the New York pension fund declined to comment. An attorney for Point didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. An attorney for Brockman’s estate declined to comment. Ardian had no comment.
Brockman was 81 when he died in August 2022 after building a multibillion-dollar fortune as a software entrepreneur and investor. He helped launch the career of Robert F. Smith by providing the initial investment in his firm, Vista.
In a 2020 indictment, prosecutors alleged Brockman used a web of offshore entities, code names and burner phones to hide $2 billion of income from the Internal Revenue Service, most of it earned through Vista investments.
The case against Brockman hinged on whether billions of dollars in an offshore charitable trust were secretly controlled by him, as prosecutors alleged, or were independently managed, as he claimed. Prosecutors said he used untaxed proceeds from offshore entities to buy a Colorado fishing lodge, a private jet and a 200-foot yacht, which his lawyers denied.
In 2021, the IRS assessed Brockman for $1.4 billion related to taxes it said he owed from 2004 to 2018. In January 2022, he sued the US to halt the agency’s immediate assessment of that levy. Days later, he filed a separate lawsuit in Tax Court, where the IRS case against his estate is continuing.
