The business of the future: private affairs

One individual remembered was Dick Onians – a venture capitalist of rare imagination. He raised money from those with private wealth and invested it in fledgling technology businesses to create and grow those with a big future.

But gradually conversation progressed to a different style of investment. Private equity deals are getting bigger. Any quoted company, whatever its size, is becoming a target. Just look at Blackstone’s £19.7bn buyout of Equity Office Properties. Depending on who they are and what they are buying, these private equity groups offer a package that lies somewhere between turnaround, re-engineering, managing for cash and asset stripping.

Private equity experts tell me not to worry. It will only get a return if the underlying business proposition is sound. People running businesses on sound principles have nothing to fear. Private equity brings to bear an important discipline: the need for an exit concentrates the minds of managers.

I certainly celebrate the richness of capitalism – the creative destruction that goes with investment and the ultimate test of the market as the judge of your contribution.

But have we got the balance right? This concern was aired by Sir Stuart Hampson, retiring chairman of John Lewis, in a recent piece in the FT: ‘The private equity funds have undoubtedly shown how money can be released and companies can be restructured, but large question marks still hang over whether such restructuring is a recipe for long-term survival.’

The first thing we need from the private equity industry is transparency. Let them say what interest they have in the underlying business for which they are bidding. What is their typical timetable? Do they intend to behave like owners? How does a private equity company with a finite ownership horizon see its contribution to climate change? Is it factoring carbon efficiency into the slide rule that it runs over its targets?

Which brings us back to reporting. Exempting private companies from the requirements of the OFR was always illogical. Whatever its shortcomings, the EU business review makes no such distinction. What we need to know from each private equity firm is not just how it will make money but how it sees the world: then I have faith that, in time, the market will give it its appropriate value.

Mark Goyder is director of Tomorrow’s Company