Jonathan Story, the professor of international political economy at Insead in France, has challenged the European private equity industry to break into fortress Europe. He urged the industry to disentangle the myriad of cross-shareholdings and release capital from private hands.

At a recent conference, professor Story said private equity could play a crucial role in reconciling the conflicting dynamics of a socialist European superstate, which tended towards protectionism and a single European market built on an Anglo-Saxon model of dispersed shareholdings, instead of limited cross-holdings.