Yea says the Wolseley, which aptly describes itself as "a cafe restaurant in the grand European tradition", is "not my usual haunt". But the chief executive of Britain's biggest-quoted private-equity company says the traditional cooked breakfast it offers is a Godsend on what promises to be a long day.

That is because, in addition to the usual pressures of running 3i, he has to finish off his preparations for what promises to be a bruising encounter with MPs on the British House of Commons Treasury Select Committee the following day. Those MPs will first have heard from unions keen to paint Yea and his ilk as an unholy alliance of evil asset strippers.

8.45am The private-equity industry might have questions to answer, but it's fair to say that it is hard to envisage Yea as the Satan incarnate opponents . . . most vocally the British GMB union . . . would like to paint him as. After his breakfast meeting, he arrives at in Victoria where he catches up with news before his first job of the day.

At 9.15am he will address 30 new members of staff who have been hired by various 3i operations around the globe and have been flown to London for the company's "global induction day". During this day, new employees are taken through the company's main activities and "values". Their first session is an introductory Q&A session with the boss, where they will have the chance to ask whatever they want.

"These are people from different parts of the world and different disciplines. The sessions enable a Stockholmbased analyst to meet, say, a finance manager from Singapore. It creates informal contacts, which we think is valuable. We want to make sure there is a common culture throughout 3i. My session lasts from 9.15am until 9.45am, and I have to make sure it finishes promptly because they have a busy day of workshops with other senior people ahead of them."

9.45am Yea returns to his office to start making calls. The company is making an important announcement on its investment in ferry company Scandlines, which operates routes in the Baltic Sea. 3i is part of a consortium . . . also including Allianz Capital Partners and German shipping group Deutsche Seereederei . . . that is buying the business from the Danish and German Governments. The company has been working on the 1.56bn deal since February 2006, and Yea is gratified that agreement has been reached after negotiations hit a bump in the road last October. "It's a complex deal that has taken a long time, but it is an example of what we do in Europe, " he says.

He is also afforded the opportunity to speak to the head of 3i's buyout business, who will be presenting to 50 investors in Madrid that have put money into the company's buyout funds. The two-day session will take the investors through the performance of 3i's funds and the investments that they have made.

Yea would normally have been in attendance himself, but is required to stay in London because of the upcoming Treasury Select Committee hearing. His final meeting is with the company's head of communications, to discuss a recent trip to Germany, where the latter was extolling the benefits of private equity in that country.

Yea is keen to dispel the image of private equity as secretive.

"We have an ongoing programme of making sure that people understand what the business is up to, " he says.

11am Yea meets with a senior businessman who is "between jobs" and considering what to do with the next phase of his career. He has been thinking about a role in private equity.

Part of Yea's job is to build relationships with chairmen and women and chief execuNoon tives. Such meetings can lead to opportunities and Yea decides it is worth following up the discussion, if a suitable role can be found within one of the many companies in which 3i invests. "He is already well-known from previous relationships, and is known to others we have worked with, so for us it is now about whether there is an opportunity that would fit rather than whether he is a suitable person."

Yea takes half an hour with the company's finance director and head of group compliance before the company's annual meeting with the Financial Services Authority (FSA). "People refer to private equity as an unregulated industry but that is just not the case, " Yea opines. "In fact, it is very well regulated by a very good regulator." He follows this with lunch at 3i with a group of private client stockbrokers, who deal primarily with retail investors.

2.30pm Yea is back in his office to go through last-minute preparations for the select committee hearing. In it, he sits alongside three other influential figures from the industry, although Yea will be the only representative from a publicly-owned private equity company.

At the hearing, Yea will emerge as the most articulate defender of the industry among the four, although he admits to being helped by the fact that, as the head of a public company, he is required to present the company's results and strategy in public twice a year. This means he is used to dealing with probing . . . and sometimes hostile . . .

questions, a responsibility that his colleagues from the other, privately-owned firms, are spared.

"I want to make sure I have reviewed all the data and have thought through all the possible questions. Our annual report is very comprehensive and includes corporate and social responsibility returns. We are very transparent, " he says. "We have been doing this for 60 years and we have invested in thousands of companies." The last-minute revision is followed by the meeting with the FSA at 4pm, where Yea discusses strategy and various other issues the regulator is keen to take up.

5.45pm Yea catches up with the head of the company's European growth capital business to hear about business and what is going on in the industry.

This is followed by a delayed meeting with the company's Singapore finance manager and head of group communications. They are discussing the possibility of investing in a "micro finance" fund in India. 3i was one of the founding investors in Bridges Ventures, which invests in start-up businesses in depressed areas in Britain, and the concept of the Indian fund has many similarities.

Yea is keen to point out that only one-third of 3i's balance sheet is invested in the sort of big-ticket buyouts that have been creating controversy in recent months. Much of its work is involved in providing funding for smaller and medium-sized enterprises in the UK and beyond. Bridges is an example. "This is not a charity, far from it, " Yea cautions. "Make no mistake, this is about business and we are in this to make a profit, but it is an example of the other work we that we do. The opportunity in India may or may not be right for us and we first have to do due diligence."

After a call to his chairman, Baroness Hogg, to ensure everything is well before her meting with corporate governance officers, he heads for his London flat at 7.30pm where he will catch up with emails before turning in early before the hearing. Subsequently, his old foes at the GMB London will throw their weight behind making him "the most hated private-equity pro" . . . an American Idolstyle contest being run at the Glastonbury Festival. "Of course it annoys us, " says Yea.

"But I think there is a recognition that this is a much more serious debate than that."

Yea and his compatriots certainly have questions to answer . . . particularly about the tax breaks enjoyed by the industry . . . but there is more to 3i than the picture of rapacious capitalist muggers some would like to portray it as.