Page 306 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

who had also worked in private equity. I picked up the phone and
started looking for likely candidates.
‘Hi. You don’t know me but I’m James Caan, I’m calling from
Hamilton Bradshaw and I’m looking for an investment director.
I’d love to have a chat. When’s a good time for you?’
I found the ideal person at Close Brothers. Then I hired a
corporate lawyer from Clifford Chance. I was like Yul Brynner
assembling the Magnificent Seven, looking for an expert in every
field of private equity combat. The one skill I wanted on my team
that few others have on theirs is a cash expert: someone who can
look at a balance sheet and see where the cash is. Cash is different
from profit, and from what I had observed the most common
reason why businesses get into trouble is that they don’t know how
to account for their cash properly. For instance, they may secure
sales of £1 million and then spend half of that on the production
of goods, failing to realise that their sales income only becomes
due sixty days after delivery. A cash expert would be key to sorting
out companies in trouble, and I hired the best in the business from
KPMG.
I found an analyst who had been the chief accountant at
Unilever and had just finished an MBA at the London Business
School. I also hired someone to originate the deals. I had thought
that would be my job, but it was already clear to me that there
were more deals out there than I could handle, and to do it well
you have to spend a lot of time with people. I could open doors,
but I needed someone who could keep them open and I found a
great guy who not only had a banking background but who had
also run his own business.
In most private equity funds 80 per cent of the profit goes to the
investors, but, as Hamilton Bradshaw would be keeping everything
it made, it meant I could give my team a very tempting profit-share
package. If there’s one thing I’m good at it’s hiring the right
people, the best people, and putting them in positions where they

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