Listed company financial reports are supposed to be transparent, and often are not. This was the topic of a session at last week’s Annual General Meeting of the IVSC, during which the panellists brainstormed ways financial reporting could provide better information (particularly on the huge intangibles on their balance sheets) to investors.

The call for clarity descended into the private capital markets also, spurred on by the UK’s COVID-19 Brexit challenges. These financial actors should embrace an even greater sense of openness and responsibility, Baroness Jeannie Drake, British trade unionist and Labour Life peer, said during a British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association Ltd. Summit 7 October. Firms must embrace openness and responsibility, be more accountable in terms of what their contribution is to the economy and to the wider society, and how they demonstrate that. They may also need to have some ‘difficult discussions’ with the government, she added.

Of course, she was speaking at an event hosted by friends in private capital, so she also complimented her virtual audience for their growing importance globally, their central place in rebuilding Britain by securing the availability of capital, and the fact that the PE industry ‘already employs a million people and it has an important role out there.’