Talk:Apax Partners/Archives/2014

Criticisms of Apax

I intend to add a section based on articles from UK financial journalists and criticisms from politicians. This should make the article more balanced and show some of the techniques, not all of which are in Sir Ronald Cohen's book.
JRPG (talk) 14:13, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

You should feel free to add material that conforms to [[WP:NPOV]. |► ϋrбanяeneωaℓ • TALK ◄| 23:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I have added a section for criticisms. The court case I mentioned did not involve Apax as a defendant, which is probably why the court did not say much about the role of the company. [1] claims that Apax decided not to appeal, but that seems an incorrect reporting as Apax was not a party in the case and therefore (to my limited knowledge of Dutch law) could not have appealed even if it had wanted to.

I will note that a commenter at [2] claims: "Apax's reputation in England is fair. Together with the Guardian group Apax owns the Emaps (a collection of B2B magazines), an arrangement with which all partners are fully satisfied (each company owns 50% of the shares). In England Apax does not have the predatory reputation that it has in the Netherlands."--83.163.143.150 (talk) 22:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I contributed to the article on British United Shoe Machinery which was owned by Apax and went into receivership in 'mysterious circumstances' to quote Edward Garnier QC. Ros Altmann, the pensions expert was also heavily involved and there are several Sunday Telegraph, Observer(Sunday Guardian) and Sunday Mail articles referenced in it. Workers were threatened with libel proceedings following which Cohen was named by Garnier in parliament. A German TV company produced a documentary -I have a DVD in German -which I'm told warned Germans of the dangers of what they regarded as asset strippers. All BUSM workers lost their pensions though some compensation was eventually provided by the taxpayer. Every Leicester MP raised Apax behaviour at some point in Parliament and asked for an enquiry. Regards JRPG (talk) 21:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Should have added that our Apax employed Chief executive went off to Dexion immediately after demerging BUSM. What a surprise, all the workers there also lost their pensions. Cohen was a significant contributor to the Labour party, then in power and there was no enquiry. I will make a contribution to the criticisms section in the next week or two but at least you know that not everyone regards them as angels.JRPG (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2014 (UTC)