Villains of 2011: Part 3

3. Southern Cross management team
This year saw the spectacular collapse of one of the UK's largest health and social care providers, Southern Cross. Poor management was clearly to blame but the company had fallen foul to the rapacious appetite of private equity investors who pushed the group towards a stock market flotation via a flawed business strategy.

Fingers have pointed at US private equity giant Blackstone which in 2006 pocketed £500m from the flotation of the group, tripling its original £162m investment. Southern Cross expanded rapidly following the Blackstone and the then CEO Philip Scott's plan to sell off its freehold properties in a sale-and-leaseback model, which netted billions in the height of the property boom.