Plumbing Bawag's Role in PIPEs

Locating Bawag's ties to the U.S. market for public investment in private equity, or PIPEs, was no easy feat.

TheStreet.com, using 10KWizard's online service for searching Securities and Exchange Commission filings, found only a handful of company documents in which Bank fur Arbeit und Wirtschaft's financial interest in a group of hedge funds was disclosed. Not surprisingly, the disclosures were always buried in the footnotes to filings listing the investors in a particular transaction.

Bawag's ownership interest in Alpha Capital, for instance, is disclosed just twice, in the Aug. 30, 2002, and Sept. 9, 2002, filings for Eagle Supply Group. The filings describe Alpha Capital as a "private investment fund owned by Bank fur Arbeit und Wirstchaft [sic] and Leguas Stiftung, a private family trust.'' ...