The exasperation among ‘old economy’ companies at a stock market fixated with telecommunications, media and technology stocks has prompted an unprecedented exodus into the world of private equity this year.

“There have been changes in the tectonic plates of City financing,” says Chris Hale, a private equity partner at Travers Smith Braithwaite. He says managers of listed money are really only interested in huge companies or the “sexy tech companies”, even if their appetite for the latter has been diminishing recently.