Private equity bought my great-great-grandfather
Permira’s agreement to buy Ancestry.com fills me with dread because I am a closet user of the genealogy site – largely through its compulsive iPad app, which my colleague Lucy Kellaway highlighted in an article in 2011.
Bought out: Prince William's family tree, as depicted by Ancestry.com
Private equity suffering in US election campaign
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has been a bit of a trainwreck for the private equity industry.
First, its image of being a bunch of ruthless asset-strippers has been revived by the Democrats (and even Romney’s Republican primary opponents) and now his tax affairs are casting a dark shadow.
As the New York Times reported this weekend, Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, has launched a broad inquiry into whether private equity firms evaded tax by turning their 2 per cent management fees into performance fees, which are taxed at a lower rate. Read more
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John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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