This book runs to some 400 pages and delves into the very heart of how private equity deals work, yet the concepts that it describes and the methods that it unpicks are simple ones. Private equity is not reliant on complex algorithms or other financial wizardry for its successes, but on the expertise of its managers, who know their business sectors intimately and understand what decisions to take and when to take them.

The operating model of private equity is very straight-forward and this model can be applied to businesses which possess wildly differing characteristics. This is one of the fascinating aspects of the private equity industry; from a high street clothes shop to a waste treatment plant, a cereal maker to an aerospace parts manufacturer, the fundamentals which govern everything that a private equity firm does remains more or less the same regardless of the industry in which the target company operates. Private equity invests in businesses which have reached a plateau and need private equity expertise and resources to grow, or those which have suffered from underperformance or stagnation due to imperfect management and need to undergo significant change in order to be revived.

In all of these cases, the model works because it aligns the interests of the people running the business with the private equity investor, providing those people with the monetary and operational support they need.