Private equity has 'failed at the PR game'

Insider Business Club

Private equity's 'failure to play the PR game' has forced it on the defensive, the vice-chairman of the ICAEW corporate finance faculty, Ian Leaman, said ahead of today's publication of the Walker report.

The 50-page report, which was put together by former Morgan Stanley International chairman Sir David Walker, will be presented to the London Stock Exchange later today.

It will detail how the industry plans to inject more transparency into its workings, and start a three-month feedback process.

Speaking ahead of that process at this week's Insider Business Club, Leaman (who is also founder director of Buckingham Corporate Finance), said: 'One accusation which can be fairly be laid at the door of the private equity community is its abject failure to play the PR game. Now they are on the back foot and that's a very difficult place to be.'

Ernst & Young partner John Cole added: 'Certainly they have been surprised by the debate, especially when they started investing in the high street, which then gets the media attention. Had they had been articulating the case of private equity more visibly and more coherently some years ago, rather than being pretty much invisible - and had they perhaps been more proactive in extolling why it is a force for good - the debate would have started from somewhere else.'

Mazars partner Richard Metcalfe said: 'It is absolutely clear that private equity firms have not been as transparent as they could have been.'

The Walker report is expected to say buyout firms should appoint external, non-executive directors to the boards of some companies bought by private equity and disclose more about debt structures.

In a poll of Insider Business Club listeners, 25% said opponents of private equity were simply attacking the sector to gain political mileage. However, the same proportion said there were genuine concerns that the industry needed to be regulated and monitored more closely.

Some 57% said they believed the approach of private equity was too short-termist, while 78% said existing tax policies unfairly favoured private equity.

In total, 100% said they belived the private equity model was better at extracting value than the publically listed model.

Further reading:

British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association