I know I’ve mentioned this before but it does seem to be something of a media trope at the moment, the evils of private equity, so worth banging away at the teensiette little bit of hypocrisy here. Will Hutton again:
It is time to come to the defence of the public limited company, one of
the great Enlightenment gifts to western civilisation. Increasingly
capital, in the quest for higher returns to make vast personal
fortunes, is going private to escape the demands of public
accountability on stock markets. If uninterrupted, the long-term
adverse consequences of this privatisation of capital for our economy,
society and democracy will be profound.
OK, so, there’s something special about public companies that make it all work better. Interesting that this view should be propagated in The Guardian, which is owned by the Scott Trust, and thus immune from those public company pressures, is it not? In fact, the very justification for that trust, of which Our Willy is a trustee, is to insulate the Guardian from the pressures of the public markets.
Do as I say, eh, not do as I do?
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