European trade unions dismiss them acidly as “asset strippers”, while in the US they have a reputation for being “barbarians”. But private equity firms are being seen in a new light – even as potential champions of the social responsibility cause – in the current challenging times.

It was February 2007. Gwen Ruta, vice-president of corporate partnerships at the Environmental Defense Fund, recalls her surprise when EDF was invited into the negotiations over a proposed buyout of Texas Utilities (TXU).

Jim Marston, head of EDF’s Texas office, rushed to San Francisco where he locked himself in a room for 17 hours with the likes of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’s legendary chairman, Henry Kravis, whose earnings, according to one union group, were running at more than $51,000 an hour.

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