Never let it be said that FT Alphaville does not have a humanitarian side. Amid the furore surrounding the testimony by leaders from the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association to a Commons committee, we can’t help feeling for the characters caught up in this storm.
Chairman Wol Kolade, vice-chairman Jeremy Hand and chief executive Peter Linthwaite have been roundly rubbished in the press following their performance earlier this week in front of the Treasury Select Committee. They have been accused of ‘behaving like ostriches’, of submitting ‘bland’ evidence, of being ‘obstructive,’ of not answering questions, the list goes on and on.
Of course, the industry expects their lobby group to fight a good fight on their behalf and put a positive message about the industry generally front and centre in the debate. That has been prompted by the question of whether private equity’s heavyweights have been using a tax loophole, treating profits as capital gains, rather than income, to bag themselves a 10 per cent rate of tax.
A few Guardian readers aside, we’d all like to pay less tax — from the billionaire investor, to the now-infamous cleaning lady. But we can’t. And there are some good reasons why not - which is why figures from the industry are lining up to call for a rethink on the rules.
Expecting the BVCA to mount a robust, well-argued defence of the indefensible is frankly unreasonable. Expecting them to do so in the full glare of the House of Commons, while being set upon by predatory politicians, well-versed in the art of the sound-bite and salivating at the prospect of glorifying themselves by coming up with the most scathing put-down for the next days papers, is bordering on inhumane. The MPs must be cock-a-hoop. No political downside on this one.
The private equity groups, who have used the BVCA largely as a shield behind which to conduct their business, should ask themselves how they have managed their own PR during the industry’s entry to the public consciousness. HSBC doesn’t rely on the British Bankers’ Association to manage its public image - it does its own talking.
Amid the mud-slinging, let’s remember that the BVCA was just a few months ago winning plaudits for signing up the US heavyweights, Blackstone, Bain, Carlyle, KKR, to the association and thus positioning itself to lead globally on issues affecting the industry.
A glimmer of support comes from the Daily Mail, where Alex Brummer notes that the BVCA appears “hopelessly out of its depth” adding: “This is not entirely its own fault. It is hard to reconcile the interests of genuine venture capitalists, the equity financiers who take start-up and grow businesses to the next phase of development, with the big beasts in the jungle.”
And so the BVCA’s success is proving its undoing.
There’s also something rather partial about this private equity baiting. Many wealthy people don’t pay 40 per cent in taxes - and never have. In coughing up 10 per cent, private equity’s big earners may well be paying more over to the Treasury than others in their income bracket.
That’ll be a £1.2bn dividend straight to Monaco, please.
