Close Adviser

摘要

There's a reason why some rankers are advisersrnand not principals. Consider Robert Swannell. The senior Citigroup banker was just returning to the venerable British merchant bank Schroders in 1985 after a short stint running a corporate finance boutique when Sir Win Bischoff, Schroder's new CEO, asked him to run a fledgling £20 million (then worth $26 million) private equity unit. Swannell turned him down. The unit, Schroder Ventures, grew rapidly and was spun out in 2001 under the name Permira; today it is Europe's biggest private equity firm with funds of £22 billion, or nearly $44 billion. Swannell, 56, laughs at the missed opportunity. "Like people said of the Beatles, I couldn't see any future in it."