Some of the world's leading private equity chiefs and bankers offered a rare ray of optimism amid an otherwise gloomy Davos yesterday as they spoke of opportunities emerging from the rubble of the collapse in world markets.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Stephen Schwarzman, the founder and chief executive of Blackstone, the New York firm that manages assets worth $116 billion (£81 billion), told The Times that there were “always opportunities when the cycle gets towards the bottom”, although he cautioned that “we are not quite there yet”.

In an earlier speech, Mr Schwarzman had said that plunging valuations meant that it was a wonderful time for the global buyout industry.

Michael Granoff, chief executive of Pomona Capital, another New York private equity group, said that it was the case that there were big opportunities opening up for private equity investors as a consequence of the crisis.

But Mr Granoff said that most of the private equity industry had not yet got to grips sufficiently with the crisis and its implications to be ready to capitalise on these opportunities and the stakes remained high for those that chose to.

“If you get it right, it will be one of the really great times to buy assets. If you get it wrong, the punishment will be real pain,” he told The Times. “There is no margin for error — you had better have a belt-and-braces approach.”

Mr Granoff said that his fund, which specialises in buying private equity stakes from cash-strapped investors hit by the crisis and who are in desperate need of capital, was booming as a result of the turmoil rocking economies worldwide and the financial upheavals. Last year, Pomona looked at $40 billion of deal flow, he said. “Part of what is going on in the world right now is that the limited partners in private equity funds need liquidity in a way that they have not before.”

Pomona was talking to many institutions such as banks and pension funds that now needed to sell on their private equity interests. “Hopefully we will buy them at a lower price,” he said.

Stephen Pagliuca, managing director of Bain Capital, the Boston group that manages $80 billion of assets, agreed that the current crisis would open a flood of opportunities for deals.

He said: “Historically there have always been significant opportunities out of dislocation. The trick is to find the right opportunities. In times like this, cash is in short supply and will be deployed in this environment at much better prices.”

The chief of another US private equity group, with $22 billion of assets, expressed similar views. “Our returns are well correlated with very bad times — and things right now are pretty bad,” he said.

“I've been doing this for 20 years and this is a big opportunity. You will see a lot of activity when the lenders come back - and they will have to come back because that's their business.”

Leading bankers also talked of strong January trading results, which were likely to bolster the 2009 results of groups including Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Deutsche Bank.

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