William E Simon was a bond trader-turned US cabinet secretary under President Richard Nixon. He was also abrasive, polarising and the ‘father of private equity’, according to journalist and author Hettie O’Brien.
Hettie tells hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth how Simon orchestrated a deal that was so revolutionary, and so lucrative, that it kickstarted the leveraged buyout trend of the 1980s, which later gave way to the modern private equity industry.
But how did we get from that one deal to a sector that’s now one of the largest alternative asset classes in the world? And if he was alive today, what would Simon think of the industry he helped create?
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