Quite when private equity began is open to debate. Some believe the basic principle dates back to Assyrian investors in around 3,000BC. One story supposedly of the time talks of investors giving a man gold to trade over a four-year period and in exchange he would take a third of the profits.

Others point to the maritime trading culture of the Phoenician civilisation between 1550BC and 300BC where merchants kept a fifth of the profits from successful voyages, distributing the rest to their investors. This is what Alfred Winslow Jones, a founding father of the hedge fund industry in 1950s, claimed was his inspiration for taking 20% of profits on successful investments, according to Sebastian Mallaby's book More Money than God.