Re: equity: Foster + Sells (small) Stake to 3i

Architexturez wrote:
> Architexturez. wrote:
> > Mystery firms close in on Foster
> > 9 February, 2007
> >
> > By Angela Monaghan, Vikki Miller
> >
> > The architect met four private equity firms this week ahead of a senior 
> > management meeting
However, inviting in the 3i private-equity group will impose a business 
discipline on a profession that often regards finance as vulgar. Foster 
is to remain as full-time chairman but will now have 3i directors on his 
board; there will be a new chief financial officer and Mouzhan Majidi, 
the man who designed the new Wembley stadium, becomes chief executive.

"If there's any shift out of this it is that Majidi can take some of the 
day-to-day responsibilities and I can spend more time on design," he 
says. "I've still got the same passion for design."

He clearly prefers the drawing board to the spreadsheet. Asked to say if 
he is a designer or businessman, Foster, a snappy dresser with a face 
like a sculpted Roman bust, immediately snaps: "I'm a designer." He says 
balancing creativity and commerce is an interesting challenge.

"The way we've been able to reconcile creativity with getting buildings 
built is the test of time, and satisfying clients so that they come back 
for more," he says.

His only commercial experience before setting up his architectural 
practice - indeed his only job - was as a 16-year-old school-leaver in 
Manchester city council's treasury department. He had been born into a 
working-class family in the city and says: "Nobody in our family or in 
the district had been to university."

cont'd....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/13/ccprof13.xml