"This year, fundraising in the US has been particularly difficult, but that should be at least partly compensated for by new UK money."The total amount of extra money put into private equity will not be revealed until the BVCA publishes its statistics for 2001 next spring.. That loaded phrase "conflict of interest" has again cropped up against Partnerships UK, the public-private partnership created to advise on public-private partnerships. But lo and behold, Mr Byers may have made another blunder.PUK is a competent organisation. It was spun out of the respected Treasury Taskforce, set up to get the Private Finance Initiative rolling. Run by former City banker James Stewart and chaired by Prudential director Derek Higgs, it isn't short of grey cells.

But the rub is that 51 per cent of the group is owned by private shareholders, including Abbey National, Prudential and Royal Bank of Scotland.PUK has the power to influence the public sector on who is awarded lucrative PFI contracts As such, its critics are rarely vocal. Over the past week, however, there has been a lot of whispering. The charge is that some of PUK's shareholders have a great deal of interest in the future of Railtrack. That could compromise PUK, it is said.Jarvis has a 2.2 per cent stake in PUK and arguably has the most at stake. It has three big maintenance contracts with Railtrack, two of which run until 2006 and one to 2005.Another shareholder with an interest is British Land, which has a 2.2 per cent stake in PUK and where Mr Higgs is a non-executive director. It is partnering Railtrack in a multi-million-pound property development above the railway lines near London's Liverpool Street station.Then there is Abbey National, with a 6.7 per cent stake.

The bank has been tipped by some as a potential bidder for Railtrack, along with WestLB and Babcock & Brown.There is no suggestion that the shareholders will use their interests in PUK as a shoe-in on the restructure of Railtrack. But another whiff of controversy would be unwelcome.Some 44.6 per cent of PUK is owned by the Treasury. Therefore, the appointment of the group represents the return of the Chancellor's department to the Railtrack fray. Behind the scenes, the Treasury was influential in the company's downfall. It has downplayed its role, but Shriti Vadera, one of Gordon Brown's closest aides, was working on the possible restructure of Railtrack back in the summer.The PUK appointment also marks the return of one of the original architects of rail privatisation: Sir Steve Robson. The ex-Treasury official is a non- executive director of PUK..

Kevin Maxwell, whose Telemonde telecoms group is teetering on a financial precipice, has told a court that he has a policy of deleting all documents relating to his business dealings. Justice Douglas Brown ruled in Mr Maxwell's favour, awarding him costs of £40,000.It is believed that Mr Sullivan may appeal against the ruling, arguing that electronic documents cannot be totally deleted from a computer system.In a statement to The Independent on Sunday, delivered through his solicitor Peters & Peters, Mr Maxwell admitted that it was his policy to delete all his emails daily and to dispose of all physical documents, save for those that need to be kept for legal reasons, once a month. "It is not my policy to store copies of emails in electronic form beyond the duration of the project to which they refer," he said.Mr Maxwell was declared bankrupt, owing more than £400m, in the wake of the collapse of the empire run by his father, Robert Maxwell. He was charged with fraud and theft in relation to the disappearance of money from the company and its pension funds, but was acquitted. Some £5.9m of legal aid was paid to fund his defence in the case.Since his acquittal Mr Maxwell has tried to restart his business career. However, the telecoms company he founded, Telemonde, is now facing financial ruin.The group has to find $4m (£2.8m), which it has admitted it does not have, to pay a debt to the US telecoms giant Global Crossing, which is due this Friday.It also owes $1.9m to the Inland Revenue and some $23m of other pressing debts..