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Private equity professionals have always prided themselves on their business acumen. It takes real smarts to buy an underperforming company and turn it around (or, ahem, just flip it in a rising market).
To keep the smartest guys in the room on their toes one enterprising PE pro, Duncan Easterbrook, finance director at specialist healthcare investor GHO Capital Partners, is launching a fight club for private equity. The new scheme will specialize in training private equity professionals in Krav Maga, a system of self-defence developed by the Israeli military.
Quite what impact this will have on future deal negotiations remains to be seen. Will secondary buyouts now involve hand-to-hand combat? But as with so much in this industry it works on many levels.
Presumably there will be injuries requiring medical attention, which recently launched GHO Capital Partners has been established to invest in. Partners in the firm include Andrea Ponti, former global co-head of healthcare investment banking at JPMorgan, and Alan MacKay, former global head of healthcare at private equity firm 3i Group.
The classes will take place at the Urban Warriors Academy, which describes itself as London’s leading combat sports and martial arts club. Co-owned by? Step forward Duncan Easterbrook.