What makes us different is that we have a lot of institutional capital behind us. Brait uses third-party capital to build its funds, as well as investing off its own balance sheet. Ball is not pleased with the way Brait has been treated by the market, but tries to remain optimistic. But without a healthy market for new listings, private equity will continue to be restrained. Private equity is Ball's speciality, but he has also had to learn to oversee a bank in a short space of time.
Ball sees the bank as a structure, rather than a business.
The bank provides some of those vital tools, and being able to cross-sell lending and advisory services into the private equity base has paid off. But the bank absorbs much-needed capital. Brait could be better structured to use the capital elsewhere to see a higher return. That structuring could either be achieved in-house or it could come through a merger or sale to other players in the industry. The financial services sector has for some time been considered a hot-bed of consolidation.