After smashing records for deal-making in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific last year, the increasingly powerful private equity industry is in the spotlight as never before. But the price for buying large, well-known companies – in recent months FTSE100 retailers Alliance Boots have been under siege – is unprecedented public notoriety and private equity is struggling to cope with its new-found fame.

Much of the attention has been negative, rattling the nerves of buy-out executives more accustomed to conducting business in private.