Private equity management fees, the percentage these fancy financiers charge merely to hold onto the riches' money, reached $33 billion in 2007, up 83 percent from $18 billion in 2003. Venture funds charged investors $6.8 billion during the year. These fees do not, of course, include the fund managers' share of profits. They're just a nice slice of a very large compensatory pie. London-based Private Equity Intelligence says the fees leave investors irked — 80 percent of them have turned down deals due to high fees, they say. But it doesn't take a Stanford MBA to tell you 83 percent growth indicates there's more demand than supply for what these people sell.

Contact information for this author is not available.