There is a topical joke doing the rounds of the Spanish private equity market: A manager bumped into the owner of a local food-processing business at a lavish cocktail reception in Barcelona and was pleased to discover that the man was interested in selling his business. Not only that, but the price and earnings looked extremely attractive.

So after another couple of glasses of rioja, they agreed to proceed to due diligence. However, when the investor got stuck into the books, he discovered that earnings were little over half what he'd been told.