Buffett Slams Private Equity Over Inflated Returns, Debt

Warren Buffett, who has long slammed the hedge fund industry for charging high fees, escalated his criticism of private-equity firms that have been raising record sums of money in recent years.

“We have seen a number of proposals from private equity funds where the returns are really not calculated in a manner that I would regard as honest,” Buffett said Saturday at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s annual meeting. “If I were running a pension fund, I would be very careful about what was being offered to me.”