THE man responsible for turning around hospital group Parkway Holdings, former chairman Anil Thadani, is once again leading a publicly listed company - in London this time, and of his own creation.

Symphony International Holdings, a private equity firm Mr Thadani and a partner launched in 2004, started trading on the London Stock Exchange yesterday, following a US$200 million initial share placement.

The firm, including the raised capital, has total equity of about US$340 million, is the first publicly listed pan-Asian private equity firm focused on the hospitality, health care and lifestyle sectors, Mr Thadani told BT in an interview.

But, as an investment firm rather than a fixed term fund, Symphony's structure is unique, he said. 'As one of the oldest private equity houses in Asia, having started in 1981, we used to do it the traditional way. Now we've abandoned the 10-year fixed life structure.'

Symphony can hold investments for as long as necessary, rather than being driven by the timing of a fund, said Mr Thadani. The 10-year frame works well for US or European funds, which have stable, low-growth economies and returns are driven not by growth but by financial engineering, such as leveraged recapitalisation of balance sheets or asset stripping.

In Asia, it's exactly the opposite, he said. 'There is high growth and high volatility. Economic cycles last three to five years. In that environment, if you limit yourself to 10 years, you have only a few years to put the money to work and could be caught at the bottom of the cycle.'

Or, as he recalls with one Indian fund, you might be forced to liquidate even when things are going well and there is still upside.

Further, since even a private equity firm focused on the long-term needs to give investors an exit strategy, the listed structure allows investors to exit by selling shares on the public market.

Mr Thadani led Parkway from December 1999, when a fund by Symphony, then known as Schroder Capital Partners, bought a 19.6 per cent stake in the health care and property group, to July 2005, when he stepped down after California-based Newbridge Capital acquired an even larger stake directly from Parkway's founders.

He stressed in an interview at the time that he had completed what he had set out to do and repositioned Parkway as a hospital group. Withdrawal allowed him to focus on other equity investments.

Even today, the fund - separate from the listed Symphony - still owns the Parkway stake, though it must be liquidated by 2010.

Asked what he thinks of competition from the flood of private equity capital coming to Asia, Mr Thadani said that he intentionally positioned Symphony with relatively small capital. 'Everyone who's been doing this as long as we have, successfully, has moved into the multi-billion dollar ranks,' he said.

He calls it the 'dog's breakfast'. The amount of money now in the business means everyone sees the same deals, which turn into auctions. The winner is the fund which paid the highest price. In contrast, by staying small, Symphony is now the most experienced fund of its size focusing on health care and hospitality in Asia, and expects higher quality deal flow.

It currently owns stakes in three Thai companies, food and lifestyle companies, and a few high-end residential apartments in Macau. Mr Thadani, who has lived here for 10 years and is a trustee of Singapore Management University, orients Symphony's strategy around his belief that strong consumerism will reduce Asia's economic dependence on the West.

It's a theme that he advocated two years ago, when he first mentioned listing Symphony, and one he now believes even more strongly.

As evidence, he recalls how his group acquired the Pizza Hut franchise in Indonesia six months before the rupiah's devaluation in 1997. An US$18 million investment was suddenly worth US$3 million, and that was before Indonesia went through one of the roughest periods in its history, with rioting and political revolution on top of devaluation.

Yet, Mr Thadani says, Pizza Hut grew 72 per cent per year in local currency terms.

He sold it for three times what he bought it for, even after accounting for devaluation. Without the devaluation, the business could have soared fifteen times in value.

'That's anecdotal, not a statistic,' said Mr Thadani. 'Those you can get from magazines. But if you don't believe this rise in consumer income, you're going to miss a lot of opportunities.'