Asset strippers? dude have your ever bought a property to do it up and sell it on? or negotiated on the price of a second hand car? or borrowed money to buy a car/house/go on holiday/pay for education? Guess what. Your an asset stripper. Private equity firms are not the great satan, coming to take our jobs, and our wives. They are an essential part of the economic chain. Without them a lot of businesses would just go under full stop. there is a serious lack of economic understanding on the prinicples of business and wealth creation. If im a shareholder in boots and the shares are at £5 and someone offers me £10, ive doubled my money. If he offers me £10, i can take that £10 and buy two shares in another company that i like. Private equity works because they have more tools and finance at their disposal. A bank isnt going to lend a billion to a failing firm, and nor should they. A bank however will lend to a company that can turn around that failing firm.

shola, london,

shola of London, the very first thing KKR should have done is topped up the pension fund. However, they are not interested in the long term health of the employees. In my book, that is a shady attitude. I make no apology for being nationalist or protectionist. Britan should look after its own people first and foremost. If peoples retirement income suffers they will die younger and cost the state more.

Get real, we need to look to the countries future not chase bucks in the short term.

Charlie, Rasmey,

Like most people in this country I have a mortgage which will if I'm lucky be paid of by the time I retire. Therefore the answer to the question about where my money comes from to open an account is always going to be "borrowed it".

But it is actually none of their business so only give them the information if you have to and walk away on principle if you dont like their questioning. I recently took 20 minutes filling in for 2 ISA's on line only to be asked my salary and household income to finish the application. No way! I chose to take my £6,000 to the post office over the counter, they didnt ask anything. If you let them get away with it they will get more and more intrusive under the guise of data protection and anti terrorist laws, vote with your feet thats the only way the message gets through.

Chris, Chelford

Chris Sullivan, Macclesfield, UK

The long term implications of these shady companies is an inherently flawed statement. Thats a gross generalisation. most private equity firms are run more efficiently than the average company in england. hence they get better, bigger and have economies of scale. Britain does not have a god given right to ownership of businesses. People create businesses, not the country or government. Private equity companies use leverage (finance) provided by banks, hedge funds, wealthy investors, and through money raised from the stock market to buy assets that are undervalued, inefficient or have manufacturing/management/debt problems. becuase they are so big they can use cheap finance to buy these companies. And what is propping up the countries long term wealth is the individual behaviour of consumers and their wealth accumulation strategies. thats why japan, thailand and other countries have outperfomed england. Please do more research before jumping to nationalistic, protectionist conclusions

shola, london,

Private equity buyouts are really asset strippers and John Watson of Boots pension fund is quite right to put forward this claim otherwise we will have another failing pension fund in the future.
We are going back to the bad old days of the 80's of Barclay and the other asset strippers . Which is the next company to be attacked. I am sure the people trying to take over companies like Boots have secure personal financial futures.

R. E. Maclean, Glasgow, U. K.

So who are KKR?

Recently I opened a new bank account and I was asked for the original source of my money. Had I earned it, won it, inherited it, nicked it or borrowed it?

Has anyone thought of the long term implications of these shady private equity companies buying up large slices of UK companies? Where is the ownership of large parts of Britain going? The 'private equity buyout' is for short term profit. I.e. greed. The trouble is it is the long term performance of these companies that is propping up the countries wealth.

Charlie, Ramsey,