Interview: Sir Ronald Cohen (Jewish Chronicle)
By David Rowan
Sir Ronald Cohen made millions in private equity. Now he wants to use his knowledge and wealth to solve a few little problems
Let's say you sit on the Sunday Times Rich List at £260 million, are married to an accomplished movie producer, and have yourself attained such business success that you are lauded as an entire industry's "founding father". When the time comes finally to retire, do you: a) pamper yourself in a super-yacht off Antibes; b) party with the Hollywood A-list; or c) take it upon yourself to solve the world's most intractable problems, from domestic poverty to the Middle East conflict?
Sir Ronald Cohen, venture capitalist extraordinaire and confidante of prime ministers, was never one to take the easy option. Having left Apax Partners two years ago at 60, he is now, as he puts it, engaged in his "second career" - working under-the-radar to improve the Palestinians' economic prospects through his Portland Trust, and investing time (and cash) to alleviate UK social inequity, as, well, "the whole issue of poverty in Britain preoccupies me".
Not, then, a man with modest ambitions. "I think fulfilment comes from reaching the right balance between doing things for yourself and doing things for others," he explains over lunch in the trust's Portland Place town-house in Central London.
"You only realise this a little later in life. When you're starting out as an entrepreneur, you're too focused on your own efforts. There are all sorts of individuals in Britain, like [entrepreneurs] Chris Hohn, Tom Hunter, and abroad, people like Al Gore, Pierre Omidyar [of eBay], Bill Gates, who, if there's an issue that they feel passionately about, are lucky enough to have the resources to devote to it. My feeling is, the careers of these people and myself have prepared us to make a contribution to society."
But... hoping to end the Middle East conflict through his Portland Trust, a not-for-profit foundation "committed to promoting peace and stability between Palestinians and Israelis through economic development"?
"If you look at my history: born in Egypt, a refugee, married to the daughter of the commander of the Exodus who's an Israeli [Sharon Harel-Cohen, whose father Yossi Harel commanded the ship carrying Holocaust survivors to Palestine], there's an obvious connection between me and the region," he says. "I can empathise with the Arab world to a greater degree than the average person would, yet at the same time I can empathise with the Israelis. Sir Harry Solomon [the trust's co-founder] and I were both of the same mind - that economics was the one thing that had not been properly used in the Middle East to bring the two sides together. I believe that helping the Palestinians to build up a powerful economy capable of providing decent livelihoods for their population is an entirely achievable objective, based on a deep level of interdependence with Israel."
His own roots are in Cairo, where he was born in 1945 to Michel Mourad Cohen, from Syria, and Sonia, nee Douek, from Britain. When he was 11, they fled as refugees to London after Gamal Abdul Nasser turned against Egypt's Jews.
They settled in Armitage Road, Golders Green and, though he arrived speaking no English, Ronald survived the rigours of Orange Hill school in Burnt Oak to win a scholarship to study philosophy, politics and economics at Exeter College, Oxford, followed by a spell at Harvard Business School. After working as a management consultant for McKinsey, at 26 he co-founded Apax Partners, often called Britain's first venture-capital firm, whose investments have ranged from Virgin Radio to Yellow Pages.
"It's not completely rags-to-riches, as my father was an educated person who was lucky enough to come over here and benefit from the help of some relatives who lent him a bit of money to get into business," he reflects. "But I went to a grammar school of very doubtful reputation, Orange Hill, where you had gold-beaters next door who used to come out with bicycle chains after dark. It was not a very salubrious school, but it was a very good training for business. If you have to surmount major obstacles, it gives you confidence that you can surmount others. In fact, I was just on the line to my history teacher, whom I have tracked down after 40 years. I owe him such a debt; he prepared me for my Oxbridge exams before I had my A-level results."
Cohen does not enjoy being the story. He rarely gives interviews, and avoids publicity for the Portland Trust - no doubt partly because any whiff of controversy surrounding its agenda would not be good for business. On his personal life, he gives little away - "I play tennis, go to the theatre, the cinema, I travel, music..." - although he did once tell a journalist that "my greatest achievement is making a success of my third marriage" (to Sharon Harel-Cohen, whose film credits include Gosford Park, and with whom he has two teenage children).
As for the tougher questions journalists have raised - whether he is "non-domiciled" for tax - he is firmly evasive: "I take the view that I am a law-abiding citizen who pays all the taxes that he is supposed to pay, and they are substantial. I am not going to discuss my tax affairs in public, full stop."
He is, though, happier talking about the Palestinian economy in all its technical detail, or deploying historical unemployment statistics for Northern Ireland's Catholics. "The thought is that economics makes peace possible, just as you saw in Northern Ireland," he explains. "If you can manage to improve the economic lot of the average Palestinian family, to provide them with decent housing, schools for their kids and so on, it will shift the ground of the conflict."
Surely a high-risk bet? "I think it's the bet of a turnaround," he says, as if considering an opportunistic bid for a credit-strapped bank. "There is scope to treble the income per capita of the average Palestinian. It offers a lot of upside potential. I have no doubt at all that the average Palestinian is not driven by ideology or anger. In that respect, the best answer we can give is our Northern Irish study [published in May] because, in 1998, at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, there was total scepticism that it would happen, and when it did happen whether it would work. And here we are in 2007..."
The study includes an intriguing graph correlating Catholic unemployment and the number of terrorist attacks over 30 years. "The reason you've had a period of peace is there's a perception that the economic situation is good, and that people don't have a cause to upset the applecart," Cohen says. "And there is also an underlying feeling that violence isn't going to work - as there will be in the Middle East."
He will give no time-frame, but says the trust has a "constructive dialogue" with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad (the trust does not talk to Hamas). "Fayad was the starting point for our loan-guarantee scheme, which offers $200m of guarantees to banks," and which is preparing to receive its first applications. Other projects range from micro-finance to pensions, as well as an "affordable and social housing initiative" aiming to support developers in building 30,000 West Bank homes.
But are Israeli checkpoints not an impediment to Palestinian economic development? "Exactly, and I think Ehud Barak, as defence minister, to his credit and with experience enhanced by a spell in the private sector, is looking at that whole issue," he says. "Can you have a different approach to checkpoints, which turns them into points of economic interchange rather than just for security? It is in Israel's interests to provide tacit support for anything that improves the Palestinians' economic lot."
As Cohen sees it, economics and politics "move together as a double helix". He is certainly no political ingenue: in 1974 he stood as the Liberals' parliamentary candidate in Kensington North, and five years later as its European candidate in London West. He converted to Blairism in 1996, since when he has given Labour almost £2m and bankrolled Gordon Brown's leadership bid.
"When I left Oxford, I thought I would go into politics," he recalls. "But when I went to Harvard Business School and discovered venture capital, I saw the downside... Those of my Oxford contemporaries who went into politics achieved a certain amount but I'm happier to have ploughed the furrow of entrepreneurship. I also had to worry about the livelihood of my parents and my family, which is tough to do on a politician's salary. When I left Oxford, I thought I had to make £300,000 in order to be financially independent."
Yet he certainly plays a political role today, if a controversial one. Conservative opponents have called him an "unelected, unaccountable" envoy. "The only word they missed out was 'self-appointed'," Cohen responds. "Envoys purport to speak on behalf of the government. I don't speak on behalf of governments, I have an economic agenda."
Still, he clearly has influence over Gordon Brown, who in 2000 put him in charge of a Social Investment Taskforce to boost economically deprived areas of the UK, and who has frequently praised his work on the Palestinian economy. He has also been called the Prime Minister's "private banker".
So what exactly is his relationship with Brown? There is a seven-second pause. "I would classify myself as a friend of the Prime Minister, just as I was a friend of Tony Blair," he says carefully. "I believed in their agenda, I was prepared to support them financially when it was unusual for business people to do so. And on subjects that are close to my expertise, I make my views known. So when it was a question of what was happening to entrepreneurship in the late '90s, when it was crucial for the [private equity] industry to get the support of the government, I did my best to obtain that support. With the Trust, I view myself as leading an action tank. With Bridges Community Ventures [which addresses UK projects] I'm chairing an effort to define new approaches to tackling poverty .
"But they are self-initiated. When you read the coverage, you'd think I'd been given six sinecures. The Commission on Unclaimed Assets [which he also chairs] is self-appointed. I wasn't asked by the Treasury to do it, or paid."
Some hostile press coverage - which has at times made comparisons with Lord Levy's controversial political role - is simply raw politics, he believes. "The attacks on me have very little to do with me. They have to do with trying to lower the chances of Gordon Brown getting elected. People perceive me as a proxy or a contributor to his likely success and want to dissuade me from continuing my support, or harming him through me."
Yet some reports have asserted more damaging links with the Levy cash-for-honours allegations. Last December, Channel 4 News alleged that the Treasury had exerted pressure to obtain Cohen's knighthood in 2000 for "services to the venture-capital industry". There were also claims that his party donations may have led to a peerage. "Number 10 came out saying that was complete rubbish, as did Number 11," Cohen says now. "My name had not been put forward for a peerage... I never wanted to be in the House of Lords, never asked for it. I don't have the time, and I'm very happy to continue to work as a knight. Yet stories were written that my name was put forward and all the rest of it."
Cohen is scathing about much of his critical media coverage, which he says has been inaccurate, unfair and deliberately distorted. "I don't think that the level of responsibility within the media today is sufficiently high," he says. "They do not worry about the consequences of the things that they print. They often view themselves as perfectly entitled to print views rather than news, but don't identify them as such.
"I had an instance recently of a major newspaper printing a story with a sensationalist headline about the Portland Trust being investigated by the Charity Commission." That was the Sunday Telegraph, which reported the commission's concern that trust staff were "among the best-paid charity workers in Britain".
"In fact, the telephone call to the commission had been made by the journalist on the Friday evening, and the case was closed on Monday morning at 10.17 when it emerged that none of the trustees took any remuneration, and all we do is pay money into the Portland Trust," Cohen says. "The [newspaper] didn't call us.
"And [separately] I got an apology out of the Daily Telegraph, a letter printed and a payment made to the Bridges Foundation, because they had written an untruthful article about me claiming I was benefiting personally from my involvement with the Bridges fund. In fact, I take zero remuneration and the investments are made through my charitable foundation.
"Is it irritating to see that people can write views about you without any basis in fact? I don't think it's right, I don't think people should be allowed to do that." He speaks hopefully of a current House of Lords inquiry into the press.
"There was one article written in a newspaper [The Observer] that drew a parallel between Sir Robert Waley Cohen, who had backed Churchill at the time of the war, and Ronald Cohen, who was backing Blair and Brown. There was nothing else to the story; its only purpose had been to draw the connection between Jewish supporters and the government."
Does he feel that some of the coverage - which often invokes, like Levy's, his Jewish background - has elements of antisemitism? "I wouldn't say directly, no. Whether the motivation of some of those who criticise me is a dislike of having Jews involved in the sorts of things I do, that's obviously a question that lots of people ask themselves. But I wouldn't say I've had much contact with overt antisemitism. Of course, you could argue that, with a name like Cohen, it's a sufficient flag."
Meanwhile, business goes on. Cohen is planning a book on social entrepreneurship, to add to one being published in November with business advice for the next generation. He sees a central role for entrepreneurs in using their skills as well as their cash to solve social problems where governments cannot - such as UK poverty. "It's become obvious that government cannot solve this by giving grants, but if you support entrepreneurs in under-invested areas, you create role models of independence," he says. Hence the mission of Bridges Community Ventures, which mixes private and government money to give entrepreneurs a start - and his own mission to wake up British people to the poverty around us.
"A big chunk of British society lives without any understanding about what is going on in poor families," he says. "They don't understand that there are people who get evicted from their homes for all sorts of reasons, who are traipsing with four children and a suitcase to try to find a place to stay for the night, who don't know how they can manage to keep their kids in school, and reach depths of despair in the face of unimaginable bureaucracy.
"Britons as a whole are caring of others. However, they do not today realise early enough the need to put something back if the system is to operate smoothly. It's particularly true for those who make a lot of money - unless you come from a background like a Jewish one, where it's typical to assume that 10 per cent of what you make should go to charity, as I was brought up. But a lot of people are focusing on making it without focusing on giving at the same time."
Otherwise, social unrest becomes a real risk. "People haven't quite understood that the system that enables entrepreneurial societies to thrive leads to social consequences that the market does not take care of. It's great to talk of the economy's growth, but you do have to worry about what's happening at the extremes. The divergence of the rich and the poor creates an unstable situation. And I am interested in avoiding a situation where people get so far left behind that they are desperate, they don't mind overturning the applecart."
So will Cohen give away his fortune? "Well, I am," he replies. "I'm giving away through the Portland Trust, I give to charity each year... I think huge fortunes are not particularly helpful things to hand down. You have a right to give your kids a certain amount and help them, but giving them too much closes off all sorts of options that might otherwise have led to their fulfilment."
This might suggest that Cohen - described by profile-writers as "ruthless" and "desperately competitive" - has gone soft. Why, even fellow venture capitalist Jon Moulton recently accused him of being "the enemy within" for urging tougher tax rules on the sector. "I did what I thought was right," Cohen says. "The debate was going in the wrong direction. We're dealing with incentives given when the world of private equity was very different. It's completely fair and reasonable to look at these again."
Because, as he sees it, success such as his carries certain moral obligations: "For all of us who have been fortunate enough to make capital, we can't take it with us in any case, so let's act responsibly with it. Let's put something back in, tikkun olam, if you like, and," he adds, "let's see if we can manage to turn the capitalist system into a stable system instead of a system that can only go on for a while. Because there is no system that is better than capitalism."
The CV
Full name: Sir Ronald Mourad Cohen
Born: Cairo, August 1 1945
Educated: Orange Hill school, Burnt Oak, North-West London; Exeter College, Oxford (PPE; president of the Oxford Union); Harvard Business School (MBA)
Family: Married to Carol Belmont in 1972, dissolved 1975; to Claire Enders in 1983, dissolved 1986; and to Sharon Harel, in 1987, with whom he has two teenage children
Career: Consultant with McKinsey & Co, 1969-71; co-founder and chairman of Apax Partners, which advises and manages funds of over $20bn, 1972-2005; currently chairman of the Portland Trust and Portland Capital LLP
Electoral career: parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Party in Kensington North, 1974; the party's European candidate in London West, 1979
Other roles: chairman of the Social Investment Task Force, the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, and Bridges Community Ventures; trustee of the British Museum; member of the executive committee of the International Institute for Strategic Studies; vice-chairman of Ben Gurion University of the Negev; member of the Harvard Board of Overseers; founder and former vice-chairman of EASDAQ and former director of NASDAQ Europe; founder director and past chairman of the British Venture Capital Association
Religious affiliation: Member of the West London Synagogue
(Jewish Chronicle, September 22 2007)
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Sir Ronald Cohen made millions in private equity. Now he wants to use his knowledge and wealth to solve a few little problems
Let's say you sit on the Sunday Times Rich List at £260 million, are married to an accomplished movie producer, and have yourself attained such business success that you are lauded as an entire industry's "founding father". When the time comes finally to retire, do you: a) pamper yourself in a super-yacht off Antibes; b) party with the Hollywood A-list; or c) take it upon yourself to solve the world's most intractable problems, from domestic poverty to the Middle East conflict?
Sir Ronald Cohen, venture capitalist extraordinaire and confidante of prime ministers, was never one to take the easy option. Having left Apax Partners two years ago at 60, he is now, as he puts it, engaged in his "second career" - working under-the-radar to improve the Palestinians' economic prospects through his Portland Trust, and investing time (and cash) to alleviate UK social inequity, as, well, "the whole issue of poverty in Britain preoccupies me".
Not, then, a man with modest ambitions. "I think fulfilment comes from reaching the right balance between doing things for yourself and doing things for others," he explains over lunch in the trust's Portland Place town-house in Central London.
"You only realise this a little later in life. When you're starting out as an entrepreneur, you're too focused on your own efforts. There are all sorts of individuals in Britain, like [entrepreneurs] Chris Hohn, Tom Hunter, and abroad, people like Al Gore, Pierre Omidyar [of eBay], Bill Gates, who, if there's an issue that they feel passionately about, are lucky enough to have the resources to devote to it. My feeling is, the careers of these people and myself have prepared us to make a contribution to society."
But... hoping to end the Middle East conflict through his Portland Trust, a not-for-profit foundation "committed to promoting peace and stability between Palestinians and Israelis through economic development"?
"If you look at my history: born in Egypt, a refugee, married to the daughter of the commander of the Exodus who's an Israeli [Sharon Harel-Cohen, whose father Yossi Harel commanded the ship carrying Holocaust survivors to Palestine], there's an obvious connection between me and the region," he says. "I can empathise with the Arab world to a greater degree than the average person would, yet at the same time I can empathise with the Israelis. Sir Harry Solomon [the trust's co-founder] and I were both of the same mind - that economics was the one thing that had not been properly used in the Middle East to bring the two sides together. I believe that helping the Palestinians to build up a powerful economy capable of providing decent livelihoods for their population is an entirely achievable objective, based on a deep level of interdependence with Israel."
His own roots are in Cairo, where he was born in 1945 to Michel Mourad Cohen, from Syria, and Sonia, nee Douek, from Britain. When he was 11, they fled as refugees to London after Gamal Abdul Nasser turned against Egypt's Jews.
They settled in Armitage Road, Golders Green and, though he arrived speaking no English, Ronald survived the rigours of Orange Hill school in Burnt Oak to win a scholarship to study philosophy, politics and economics at Exeter College, Oxford, followed by a spell at Harvard Business School. After working as a management consultant for McKinsey, at 26 he co-founded Apax Partners, often called Britain's first venture-capital firm, whose investments have ranged from Virgin Radio to Yellow Pages.
"It's not completely rags-to-riches, as my father was an educated person who was lucky enough to come over here and benefit from the help of some relatives who lent him a bit of money to get into business," he reflects. "But I went to a grammar school of very doubtful reputation, Orange Hill, where you had gold-beaters next door who used to come out with bicycle chains after dark. It was not a very salubrious school, but it was a very good training for business. If you have to surmount major obstacles, it gives you confidence that you can surmount others. In fact, I was just on the line to my history teacher, whom I have tracked down after 40 years. I owe him such a debt; he prepared me for my Oxbridge exams before I had my A-level results."
Cohen does not enjoy being the story. He rarely gives interviews, and avoids publicity for the Portland Trust - no doubt partly because any whiff of controversy surrounding its agenda would not be good for business. On his personal life, he gives little away - "I play tennis, go to the theatre, the cinema, I travel, music..." - although he did once tell a journalist that "my greatest achievement is making a success of my third marriage" (to Sharon Harel-Cohen, whose film credits include Gosford Park, and with whom he has two teenage children).
As for the tougher questions journalists have raised - whether he is "non-domiciled" for tax - he is firmly evasive: "I take the view that I am a law-abiding citizen who pays all the taxes that he is supposed to pay, and they are substantial. I am not going to discuss my tax affairs in public, full stop."
He is, though, happier talking about the Palestinian economy in all its technical detail, or deploying historical unemployment statistics for Northern Ireland's Catholics. "The thought is that economics makes peace possible, just as you saw in Northern Ireland," he explains. "If you can manage to improve the economic lot of the average Palestinian family, to provide them with decent housing, schools for their kids and so on, it will shift the ground of the conflict."
Surely a high-risk bet? "I think it's the bet of a turnaround," he says, as if considering an opportunistic bid for a credit-strapped bank. "There is scope to treble the income per capita of the average Palestinian. It offers a lot of upside potential. I have no doubt at all that the average Palestinian is not driven by ideology or anger. In that respect, the best answer we can give is our Northern Irish study [published in May] because, in 1998, at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, there was total scepticism that it would happen, and when it did happen whether it would work. And here we are in 2007..."
The study includes an intriguing graph correlating Catholic unemployment and the number of terrorist attacks over 30 years. "The reason you've had a period of peace is there's a perception that the economic situation is good, and that people don't have a cause to upset the applecart," Cohen says. "And there is also an underlying feeling that violence isn't going to work - as there will be in the Middle East."
He will give no time-frame, but says the trust has a "constructive dialogue" with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad (the trust does not talk to Hamas). "Fayad was the starting point for our loan-guarantee scheme, which offers $200m of guarantees to banks," and which is preparing to receive its first applications. Other projects range from micro-finance to pensions, as well as an "affordable and social housing initiative" aiming to support developers in building 30,000 West Bank homes.
But are Israeli checkpoints not an impediment to Palestinian economic development? "Exactly, and I think Ehud Barak, as defence minister, to his credit and with experience enhanced by a spell in the private sector, is looking at that whole issue," he says. "Can you have a different approach to checkpoints, which turns them into points of economic interchange rather than just for security? It is in Israel's interests to provide tacit support for anything that improves the Palestinians' economic lot."
As Cohen sees it, economics and politics "move together as a double helix". He is certainly no political ingenue: in 1974 he stood as the Liberals' parliamentary candidate in Kensington North, and five years later as its European candidate in London West. He converted to Blairism in 1996, since when he has given Labour almost £2m and bankrolled Gordon Brown's leadership bid.
"When I left Oxford, I thought I would go into politics," he recalls. "But when I went to Harvard Business School and discovered venture capital, I saw the downside... Those of my Oxford contemporaries who went into politics achieved a certain amount but I'm happier to have ploughed the furrow of entrepreneurship. I also had to worry about the livelihood of my parents and my family, which is tough to do on a politician's salary. When I left Oxford, I thought I had to make £300,000 in order to be financially independent."
Yet he certainly plays a political role today, if a controversial one. Conservative opponents have called him an "unelected, unaccountable" envoy. "The only word they missed out was 'self-appointed'," Cohen responds. "Envoys purport to speak on behalf of the government. I don't speak on behalf of governments, I have an economic agenda."
Still, he clearly has influence over Gordon Brown, who in 2000 put him in charge of a Social Investment Taskforce to boost economically deprived areas of the UK, and who has frequently praised his work on the Palestinian economy. He has also been called the Prime Minister's "private banker".
So what exactly is his relationship with Brown? There is a seven-second pause. "I would classify myself as a friend of the Prime Minister, just as I was a friend of Tony Blair," he says carefully. "I believed in their agenda, I was prepared to support them financially when it was unusual for business people to do so. And on subjects that are close to my expertise, I make my views known. So when it was a question of what was happening to entrepreneurship in the late '90s, when it was crucial for the [private equity] industry to get the support of the government, I did my best to obtain that support. With the Trust, I view myself as leading an action tank. With Bridges Community Ventures [which addresses UK projects] I'm chairing an effort to define new approaches to tackling poverty .
"But they are self-initiated. When you read the coverage, you'd think I'd been given six sinecures. The Commission on Unclaimed Assets [which he also chairs] is self-appointed. I wasn't asked by the Treasury to do it, or paid."
Some hostile press coverage - which has at times made comparisons with Lord Levy's controversial political role - is simply raw politics, he believes. "The attacks on me have very little to do with me. They have to do with trying to lower the chances of Gordon Brown getting elected. People perceive me as a proxy or a contributor to his likely success and want to dissuade me from continuing my support, or harming him through me."
Yet some reports have asserted more damaging links with the Levy cash-for-honours allegations. Last December, Channel 4 News alleged that the Treasury had exerted pressure to obtain Cohen's knighthood in 2000 for "services to the venture-capital industry". There were also claims that his party donations may have led to a peerage. "Number 10 came out saying that was complete rubbish, as did Number 11," Cohen says now. "My name had not been put forward for a peerage... I never wanted to be in the House of Lords, never asked for it. I don't have the time, and I'm very happy to continue to work as a knight. Yet stories were written that my name was put forward and all the rest of it."
Cohen is scathing about much of his critical media coverage, which he says has been inaccurate, unfair and deliberately distorted. "I don't think that the level of responsibility within the media today is sufficiently high," he says. "They do not worry about the consequences of the things that they print. They often view themselves as perfectly entitled to print views rather than news, but don't identify them as such.
"I had an instance recently of a major newspaper printing a story with a sensationalist headline about the Portland Trust being investigated by the Charity Commission." That was the Sunday Telegraph, which reported the commission's concern that trust staff were "among the best-paid charity workers in Britain".
"In fact, the telephone call to the commission had been made by the journalist on the Friday evening, and the case was closed on Monday morning at 10.17 when it emerged that none of the trustees took any remuneration, and all we do is pay money into the Portland Trust," Cohen says. "The [newspaper] didn't call us.
"And [separately] I got an apology out of the Daily Telegraph, a letter printed and a payment made to the Bridges Foundation, because they had written an untruthful article about me claiming I was benefiting personally from my involvement with the Bridges fund. In fact, I take zero remuneration and the investments are made through my charitable foundation.
"Is it irritating to see that people can write views about you without any basis in fact? I don't think it's right, I don't think people should be allowed to do that." He speaks hopefully of a current House of Lords inquiry into the press.
"There was one article written in a newspaper [The Observer] that drew a parallel between Sir Robert Waley Cohen, who had backed Churchill at the time of the war, and Ronald Cohen, who was backing Blair and Brown. There was nothing else to the story; its only purpose had been to draw the connection between Jewish supporters and the government."
Does he feel that some of the coverage - which often invokes, like Levy's, his Jewish background - has elements of antisemitism? "I wouldn't say directly, no. Whether the motivation of some of those who criticise me is a dislike of having Jews involved in the sorts of things I do, that's obviously a question that lots of people ask themselves. But I wouldn't say I've had much contact with overt antisemitism. Of course, you could argue that, with a name like Cohen, it's a sufficient flag."
Meanwhile, business goes on. Cohen is planning a book on social entrepreneurship, to add to one being published in November with business advice for the next generation. He sees a central role for entrepreneurs in using their skills as well as their cash to solve social problems where governments cannot - such as UK poverty. "It's become obvious that government cannot solve this by giving grants, but if you support entrepreneurs in under-invested areas, you create role models of independence," he says. Hence the mission of Bridges Community Ventures, which mixes private and government money to give entrepreneurs a start - and his own mission to wake up British people to the poverty around us.
"A big chunk of British society lives without any understanding about what is going on in poor families," he says. "They don't understand that there are people who get evicted from their homes for all sorts of reasons, who are traipsing with four children and a suitcase to try to find a place to stay for the night, who don't know how they can manage to keep their kids in school, and reach depths of despair in the face of unimaginable bureaucracy.
"Britons as a whole are caring of others. However, they do not today realise early enough the need to put something back if the system is to operate smoothly. It's particularly true for those who make a lot of money - unless you come from a background like a Jewish one, where it's typical to assume that 10 per cent of what you make should go to charity, as I was brought up. But a lot of people are focusing on making it without focusing on giving at the same time."
Otherwise, social unrest becomes a real risk. "People haven't quite understood that the system that enables entrepreneurial societies to thrive leads to social consequences that the market does not take care of. It's great to talk of the economy's growth, but you do have to worry about what's happening at the extremes. The divergence of the rich and the poor creates an unstable situation. And I am interested in avoiding a situation where people get so far left behind that they are desperate, they don't mind overturning the applecart."
So will Cohen give away his fortune? "Well, I am," he replies. "I'm giving away through the Portland Trust, I give to charity each year... I think huge fortunes are not particularly helpful things to hand down. You have a right to give your kids a certain amount and help them, but giving them too much closes off all sorts of options that might otherwise have led to their fulfilment."
This might suggest that Cohen - described by profile-writers as "ruthless" and "desperately competitive" - has gone soft. Why, even fellow venture capitalist Jon Moulton recently accused him of being "the enemy within" for urging tougher tax rules on the sector. "I did what I thought was right," Cohen says. "The debate was going in the wrong direction. We're dealing with incentives given when the world of private equity was very different. It's completely fair and reasonable to look at these again."
Because, as he sees it, success such as his carries certain moral obligations: "For all of us who have been fortunate enough to make capital, we can't take it with us in any case, so let's act responsibly with it. Let's put something back in, tikkun olam, if you like, and," he adds, "let's see if we can manage to turn the capitalist system into a stable system instead of a system that can only go on for a while. Because there is no system that is better than capitalism."
The CV
Full name: Sir Ronald Mourad Cohen
Born: Cairo, August 1 1945
Educated: Orange Hill school, Burnt Oak, North-West London; Exeter College, Oxford (PPE; president of the Oxford Union); Harvard Business School (MBA)
Family: Married to Carol Belmont in 1972, dissolved 1975; to Claire Enders in 1983, dissolved 1986; and to Sharon Harel, in 1987, with whom he has two teenage children
Career: Consultant with McKinsey & Co, 1969-71; co-founder and chairman of Apax Partners, which advises and manages funds of over $20bn, 1972-2005; currently chairman of the Portland Trust and Portland Capital LLP
Electoral career: parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Party in Kensington North, 1974; the party's European candidate in London West, 1979
Other roles: chairman of the Social Investment Task Force, the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, and Bridges Community Ventures; trustee of the British Museum; member of the executive committee of the International Institute for Strategic Studies; vice-chairman of Ben Gurion University of the Negev; member of the Harvard Board of Overseers; founder and former vice-chairman of EASDAQ and former director of NASDAQ Europe; founder director and past chairman of the British Venture Capital Association
Religious affiliation: Member of the West London Synagogue
(Jewish Chronicle, September 22 2007)
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