‘My colleagues did not want to do turnaround and I did,’ Moulton tells GrowthBusiness. ‘So I am doing what I want to be doing and they now have a closed investment fund and a portfolio to work out. I think on balance I am in a relatively nice place.’

Moulton last month raised £142 million on AIM for his new vehicle, Better Capital, which will invest between £5 million and £30 million in each turnaround deal it backs.

Adds Moulton, ‘As a mid-market private equity firm [Alchemy] was going nowhere. The team wasn’t working particularly brilliantly and the portfolio was a bit too average for my tastes.’

Moulton has often criticised the excessive use of leverage in private equity, which he says has been the buy-out industry’s ‘big flaw’.

‘That is largely self-correcting now as the debt markets have evaporated,’ he argues. ‘What remains of private equity is likely to end up much healthier.’

Jon Moulton will be featured in this year’s Power Top 50, an annual ranking of influential entrepreneurs and investors published annually in Business XL magazine. See last year’s list.