Guy Hands

Guy Hands (born 27 August 1959) is an English financier and investor.

He is most notable as the founder and former chairman of Terra Firma Capital Partners, one of the largest private equity firms in Europe.

Hands also served as chairman of the UK music company EMI.

Hands is well known for his frequently outspoken comments about the private equity industry.

At the age of nine, he was sent to Ravenscroft, a prep school which had a specialist class for dyslexics, and in a Ravenscroft production of Macbeth in 1970 he played the part of Lady Macbeth opposite Christopher Newbury as Macbeth.

From there, he went on to The Judd School, at Tonbridge, where there is now a Guy Hands Library.

Hands studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Mansfield College, Oxford.

While there, he held the office of Bursar of the Oxford Union and was also President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in Michaelmas Term 1980.

Hands later provided funding for construction of the Hands Building at Mansfield College.

Before arriving at Oxford, Hands started a business selling pictures.

Once he was there, it became known as 'Artsake' and employed a number of his fellow students.

Hands started his City career in 1982 as a eurobond trader at Goldman Sachs.

He was appointed Head of Eurobond trading in 1986 and later rose to become head of global asset structuring world-wide for Goldman's European division in 1990.

As well, Hands effectively became the UK's biggest pub landlord through a series of acquisitions in the 1990s.

In 1994, Hands left Goldman to found Nomura's Principal Finance Group, which focused on European private equity investments.

Hands joined Nomura after three other banks, including Goldman, turned down his investment plan.

At Nomura, Hands and his team completed over $20 billion of leveraged buyouts.

In 1996, Hands played a central role in the sale of the Ministry of Defence's 57,400 homes for military personnel and their families to Annington Homes, which had been established earlier that year as a shell company by Nomura, making Annington the largest owner of residential property in England and Wales.

By 2000, Hands was reported to have generated profits for the bank in excess of $1.9 billion, making him a star financier in London.

Hands' most notable acquisitions at Nomura included Annington Homes, as well as William Hill, the bookmaker, and Angel Trains, the UK rolling stock company.

In 2002, Hands founded Terra Firma Capital Partners, as a spinout from Nomura, which he had built into one of the largest private equity investors in Europe.

Terra Firma debuted with a €2 billion private equity fund, immediately making it one of the larger private equity investors in Europe.

The firm's early investments, while still a division of Nomura, focused on housing (Annington Homes), leasing companies and pubs.

Since 2002, the firm has made major investments in the waste management (Waste Recycling Group), energy (BGCL, East Surrey Holdings, Phoenix Natural Gas), aircraft leasing (AWAS), cinema (Odeon Cinemas/UCI) and music sectors (EMI).

TFCP has also made significant investments in German residential housing (Deutsche Annington) and motorway services (Tank & Rast).

Terra Firma is now also one of the world's leading private equity investors in renewable energy.

Its investments include the UK-based green energy business (Infinis), a US wind energy business (EverPower) and an Italian solar energy business (RTR).

Hands and Terra Firma are also known for the failed investment in British music company EMI, which was later taken over by Citigroup, the main lender in the investment.

In April 2009 he moved from the UK to Guernsey where Terra Firma is based.

Hands was born in London, to South African parents, who had lived in Southern Rhodesia.

As a small boy he attended Holy Trinity School, Cookham, where he was diagnosed as severely dyslexic.

Hands had spent much of 2010 engaged in litigation with Citigroup, claiming the bank engaged in fraud during its auction of EMI in 2007.

The lawsuit went to trial in New York in late 2010 and resulted in a jury finding in favour of Citigroup.

Citigroup took ownership of EMI Group from Terra Firma on 1 February 2011, wiping out the firm's investments and writing off £2.2 billion of debt.

Despite implementing an operational turnaround, Terra Firma was reported to have lost $2.5 billion in the EMI transaction, representing roughly one-third of Terra Firma's investor's capital as well as more than 60% of Hands' personal net worth.

This verdict was however overturned in May 2013, after a US federal appeals court found that the American trial judge, Jed Rakoff, had incorrectly instructed the jury on a point of English law.

A new, judge-led trial was heard by Mr Justice Burton in London in June 2016.

After two days of evidence, during which Hands admitted on more than one occasion that he didn't have 'that memory anymore', lawyers for Terra Firma withdrew the case with all costs to be borne by Terra Firma.

Burton said: "I’m sure this is the right result".

Citi said: "We have always maintained that the allegations made by Terra Firma were entirely baseless."