The luxurious Dorchester Hotel in London was the setting for an uncomfortable meeting between the world’s private equity (PE) chiefs, where there was no doubt nervous exchanges as to how the global financial crisis has impacted their companies and what the future is for private equity. Some analysts are claiming that PE is at death’s door due to the huge amounts of leverage that PE firms took on. This led PE firms, it is argued, to get caught up in the asset bubble and to pay grossly over-inflated prices for companies landing them now in serious financial trouble. The value of companies owned by PE firms, according to The Economist, fell by 50 percent and, according to Deloitte, they expect the same percentage of PE houses to close or to return whole funds next year. However, others are not so pessimistic as to global prospects for PE in 2009 and
