TUC Chief Slams Private Equity Funds.

Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said that the private equity companies are: “Little more than amoral asset-strippers after a quick buck; casino capitalists enjoying huge personal windfalls from deals at the same time as they gamble with other people’s futures.”

“The problem is simple: private equity can steer clear of the responsibilities a public company has to live up to”, added Barber, “its owners will disclose as little as possible about what they are doing, and why. In companies that are often leveraged to the hilt, it’s employees who end up shouldering much of the risk, with downward pressure on pay, pensions and job security.”

Up to now it has been the GMB union which has taken the lead in demanding that the government clip the wings of the private equity funds. In early March a pan-European meeting under the auspices of the OECD will gather trade unionists from 40 countries to consider the problems posed by private equity companies.http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semiconductor-blog/2007/02/locusts-the-aa-debenhams-the-g.html

A measure wanted by the UK unions is to remove the tax loophole which private equirty funds enjoy of being allowed to set against their tax liability the interest they pay on their borrowings..

So far the UK government has resisted union calls for this tax concession to be dropped, but that is thought to be because Chancellor Gordon Brown is close friends with Sir Ronnie Cohen, head of the UK’s largest private equity company Apax Partners.

Brown may be forced to choose between his pal and the unions.