Guy Hands, founder of private equity firm Terra Firma, on Thursday admitted that if the May 2007 auction for music group EMI had happened two weeks later, he would never have bought the company, by far his biggest investment.

His comments, at a conference in New York, are the closest Mr Hands has ever come to admitting, albeit implicitly, that he regrets doing the £4bn deal that has attracted worldwide media attention and tied up a third of the capital in his two most recent funds.