Sir Ronald Cohen: former refugee turned private-equity genius

Since resigning from venture capital firm Apax Partners in 2005, Ronald Cohen has emerged as Gordon Brown's chief fund-raiser, business aide and link to the City. But his recent attacks on private equity have exposed him to charges of treachery.

When Sir Ronald Cohen resigned from Apax Partners in 2005, after more than 30 years in the private-equity industry, "it was a little like the locomotive being unhitched from the wagons", he told The Guardian. It gave him time to "think deeply" and kick-start some big ideas for social investment in Britain and the Middle East. And it meant a new political role. A generous Labour party donor, the "father of venture capital" threw his weight behind Gordon Brown, emerging as the incoming PM's chief fund-raiser, business aide and link to the City. He's likely to wield far more power in the new government than many Cabinet ministers.

It's tempting to draw comparisons with Lord Levy, Tony Blair's "private banker" and sometime Middle Eastern envoy, says Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. But Cohen is in a different league. Unlike Levy, who made a "very modest" fortune advising Alvin Stardust and sundry other 1970s pop-stars (and was "generally an embarrassment on his numerous trips abroad"), Cohen is a man of intellectual distinction, amassing a £250m fortune while presenting himself as "the acceptable and responsible face of private equity". Sophisticated and urbane, he mixes high finance and social zeal with a dash of Hollywood glamour, courtesy of his film-making third wife, Sharon Harel-Cohen. It's certainly been a gilded career, says The Sunday Telegraph, yet Cohen may have made his first big blunder. In "merrily" recommending higher taxes for private equity, he has exposed himself to charges of treachery. Worse, the focus has now switched to his own personal tax affairs. Should it emerge that, as a non-domiciled British resident, he enjoys "an advantageous arrangement offshore", the damage to Brown's shiny new government could be significant.

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