The chief executive of Edmond de Rothschild Private Equity believes there is a solution to the build up of capital competing for assets in the buyout industry: getting into investments earlier.

According to Johnny El Hachem, the challenge facing the industry is not the near-record levels of uninvested capital held by buyout firms, it is the fact that it is difficult to find attractive investment opportunities in which to deploy it, he told Financial News at an FT sustainable investing conference last month.