I would like to begin by talking about the two themes that are up here and the role that businesses like yours can play in this: one is climate change and the second is education. What role do you see for firms like yours? Private equity firms can have some impact by investing in companies that are specialized in education or climate change and I think you will begin to see a lot more money invested in climate change-related companies, particularly venture capital. Education is now increasingly where private equity is now focused. So I think private equity firms cannot change the world overnight but I think we can have some impact by investing in some of these areas. What is driving this investment? I think that more and more customers are going to use the products of these kinds of companies and therefore that will make these companies more valuable over time. Hopefully we can get in and invest there before it is too late but we are bullish on both of those industries. Is this trend limited to certain sectors and certain geographies or is it more broad-based? It’s broad based. I think it’s a global phenomenon; climate change companies particularly are a global phenomenon. Education is increasingly important as people recognize that without it you cannot advance. Increasingly you will see money going into both these areas. But are companies turning green just because that’s the color of the year or is it more sincere than that? Companies are turning green because they realize it is going to be more profitable to be green. Firstly, customers will be happier if you are, shareholders will be happier if you are and you can save money if you are practically green and you will save money on carbon costs. So, yes, I think people see it as a very big opportunity. But couldn’t going green destabilize free trade, the free market? I don’t think going green is going to happen overnight in a way that is going to destabilize anything. So I don’t think it will happen in a steady way and I don’t think it will destabilize anything as far as I can see. Are you concerned with the rise of private equity? Because it seems that the big trend worldwide is that more and more companies are either buying out companies that are listed on stock exchanges and taking them private or growing purely in private equity. Well, you have to remember first of all that I am in private equity so as the private equity industry expands I am probably not going to be upset, but, secondly, probably less than 1 percent of the companies that private equity companies buy are public to private; it’s a very small percentage of what we do. It gets attention because the companies are public when we buy them, but it’s a very small number. So I don’t think it’s going to have a big impact one way or the other. Our focus will continue to be buying subsidiaries of public companies, private companies or former public companies. What about the issue of regulation of private equity funds? There has been some talk about it in Britain and the United States. There has been some talk about it, but I think increasingly as people look at the situation, they are going to see that it is not broken and so doesn’t need to be fixed. The world has many problems, in fact probably more problems than it has ever had. And this is not a problem, so I don’t really think legislators or government people will think that is worth their energy, in my view. But preemption is not … Preemption by the private equity firms or by the government? By regulators. Well, I don’t think, given all the things that regulators have to worry about, that preempting is a problem or something they are going to worry about. If they worry about the problems that already exist the world will be a better place. You are growing a lot in the Middle East? Why? The Middle East increasingly has more and more capital. The Middle East is a place that is not just taking its capital and investing it in the West but increasingly that capital is going to stay in the region. Companies are going to become more valuable and there are opportunities for private equity people to buy companies that will grow in value. Are their industries that you are specifically focusing on, or not really? I think anything related to energy, of course, will be important in the Middle East but I do think financial services and telecommunications will continue to be attractive sectors in the Middle East. Which other markets in the world are you looking at? We do think that Brazil has a great deal of attraction; we think China and India are very attractive and increasingly, I think, Africa will continue to be a place that private equity will begin to look at. Despite the political instability of Africa? Well, there are more than 50 countries in Africa and not all of them are unstable. I think the South African government is very stable, for example. What about the smaller countries in West Africa? They do have some issues from time to time, but remember: you make money where there is instability and uncertainty, and if you go where something is very static you probably won’t make as much money.

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