A PR problem for the private equity sharks, part II

The Daily Mail is really going for the private equity industry, as we noted yesterday.

Good.

The paper doesn’t embark on campaigns lightly, it usually has a goal in mind, one that it is fairly sure it can achieve, so that it can later claim victory.

What is its specific aim this time? I don’t think we know (apologies if I have missed that bit).

We can’t just ban private equity, presumably, and at least some of the time it must be providing investment that otherwise would not exist.

The private equity industry could come out and say, collectively, that it promised to try and be nice, but that seems unlikely. (Anyway, who’d believe it?)

So perhaps we are looking at a tax shake-up, to make private equity deals less attractive?

The Daily Mail & General Trust has its own ventures arm. Would the paper really back higher taxes on such businesses? Strange days indeed, if so.

But then you wouldn’t expect a Tory government to spend £60 billion on a furlough scheme to keep tens of millions of people away from work.

Nor to decide that borrowing £300 billion a year is the prudent way to proceed.

Yesterday, the FT splashed the news that Rishi Sunak plans to block some companies from listing in London on security grounds.

A Tory chancellor!

If this happens, who can say private equity won’t be next.

It needs some good PR.