Former Energis chief exec to join brother on board of Apax Partners

Mike Grabiner, the former chief executive of the troubled telecoms company Energis, was yesterday made a director at the venture capital firm Apax Partners.

He joins his brother, Stephen Grabiner, who is also a director at Apax and who has worked there, specialising in investing in media and communications businesses, since 2000.

Sir Ronald Cohen, Apax's chairman, said: "There are a number of opportunities in the telecommunications sector and Mike's contribution, both in assessing these opportunities and in supporting the companies in which we have invested, will be substantial."

Mike Grabiner joins a growing list of executives who have left high-profile positions in quoted companies to take on roles in venture capital firms financing private businesses where the rewards are potentially much higher.

Allen Yurko, the former chief executive of Invensys, recently joined Compass Partners, a private equity and investment banking boutique. Ian Duncan, the former finance director of Tomkins, also quit to join Compass as did the former chief executive of Dalgety Ken Hanna.

Other high-profile defectors include Mark Booth, the former chief executive of BSkyB, who left to head up an internet investment fund, e-partners, and Bob Quarta, the former chief executive of BBA, who traded his position for a career in the private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice.

When Mr Grabiner retired from Energis in May, he stressed that, at 50 years old, he wanted to do something "entirely different" while he was still "young and energetic enough to do it".

Apax is, perhaps, best known in the UK as the firm that invested early on in the Cambridge-based technology company Autonomy. The venture capital firm took a stake in Autonomy in 1996 and, this time last year, sold the rest of its shares at a huge profit.