And that’s a lot of bosses. Moulton, founder of Alchemy, one of Britain’s best-known private-equity firms, now has a range of controlling investments that make him, among other things, the country’s biggest provider of nursing-home beds (Four Seasons), the owner of one of Britain’s largest IT groups (Arelon, Cedar, Datapoint, Phoenix, Radius, Riverdeep, Sanderson), a vital supplier to the American military (Wardle Storeys), a player in hotels, electronics, day nurseries, office rentals, investment banking, pubs and more.

In short, he has a lot on his plate, and if you wanted to speak to him last week, the train was the only option. At a time when the private-equity market seems to hit fresh turbulence every day — ever bigger bids going in, funds failing to hit money-raising targets, doubts raised over the colossal fees and lack of transparency — Moulton is busier than ever. All are small-to-medium deals, all off the front pages.

Debenhams? “Five different parties tried to get us involved — not interested,” he says. The retailer is now subject to a bid by the private-equity firm Permira, led by Moulton’s old protégé, Damon Buffini. “We don’t do auctions,” sniffs the Alchemy chief.

Instead, last week Moulton was tying up a deal to scoop up some more day nurseries, this time in Scotland to add to those Alchemy already has elsewhere. That’s his style. Low-key public to privates, “turnrounds and turn-ups”, often putting new management into deadbeat firms, squeezing losses into profits, bolting on acquisitions then selling on, generating generous returns for the small core of investors who supply Moulton with the £255m a year he plays with.

It’s an extraordinary world — proof of the maxim that the rich get richer while the rest of us press our noses to the window. Moulton takes his millions from 30 or so investors: big companies, American state government, and rich individuals for whom he can generate returns of 30% or more. He also invites in a few “people of influence” for whom he lowers the bar because he reckons they may prove useful in the long run. The last time we met he dropped hints that this included cabinet ministers.

Whoever can he mean? He’s still not telling, though this time he adds that his most famous backer now is “one of America’s biggest software names whose company has the initials MSD — that’s all we’re allowed to say”. And he grins gnomically through rimless glasses.

It’s more than you will get from most in the notoriously secretive world of private equity, but Stoke-born Moulton has always been a maverick. Bald, thin, ascetic-looking with a sharp wit and a blunt, sometimes arrogant manner, he cut his business teeth working as a receiver in Liverpool, reviving and breaking up bust companies, before moving into merger-and-acquisition work in America.

He has worked through big City names — Citigroup, Schroders, Apax — and fallen out with a few who don’t appreciate his direct approach. That includes some in the government (those not investing with him, anyway), who got rather nervous when he nearly bought Rover three years ago.

Moulton’s credo is to make a lot of money and “have a bit of fun along the way”, working with a small team of four other partners, concentrating on the numbers. Venal? “Of course,” he laughs, “our whole objective is venality, but if you can have fun on the way then it’s really good.”

That includes his plan to whip everyone at tennis later in the day, once he has gathered his troops at a Teesside conference hotel — owned by Alchemy, of course.

Yet he barely seems the part. Sitting in the window-seat, curtain drawn against the sun, 52-year-old Moulton looks more like a modest accountant enjoying a morning off. His lips are pinched, his check shirt cautiously open. Buttered toast in hand, surveying the papers in front of him as he talks, he throws out clipped conversation never more than a few sentences long. Only his alert dark eyes give the game away, flicking from side to side, always looking for new amusements, new challenges.

Should private-equity firms be more transparent? “Yes.”

Why aren’t they? “The only reason most of them are not is they are making too much money.”