Better Capital’s Moulton slams banks’ attitude
PRIVATE equity veteran Jon Moulton yesterday said low lending rates were strangling the flow of buyout deals as banks propped up distressed companies with cheap capital.
Moulton, who is chairman of turnaround specialist Better Capital, said banks were content to lend money to bad businesses rather than crystalise their losses and sell to a private equity firm – drying up the pool of firms to buy.
“What you have is good people and good assets but bad performance. It’s zombie style, and it’s starting to stack up.”
Better Capital yesterday issued an interim management statement showing its first investment fund had £174.6m committed to ventures.
In April its second fund committed £40m to Jaeger but Moulton said the potential for deals had been patchy.
“Anything near a consumer is a problem and anything outside of London.
“It could be better but it’s not a strong market at the moment.”