He reckons the courier could be showing a profit in a couple of months. "We can see a way forward," he says simply. "A lot has happened already - there are 12 substantial work streams on the way, several of which will be putting back their first quantitative returns tomorrow. It will be the first time they know what they've actually done."
Moulton has promised to invest £40m as part of the deal but he knows City Link doesn't do many miles to the gallon. "It has eaten an enormous amount of cash," he admits.
What's wrong with the company? "It's easier to list by exception – the name's pretty good," he jokes. "We don't know enough about exactly what's gone wrong but there have been multiple changes of management, systems, strategy, acquisitions, clearly a lot of those decisions were wrong. Having said that, we have bought a company that is improving actually quite rapidly. It might very well have been that, if Rentokil had hung on for a year, they may have seen black numbers start to emerge."
It's classic Moulton: he may know nothing about a sector or business but he sees "a way forward" and pounces. He said Better Capital looked at City Link for a "couple of weeks – it was longer than normal, most of our deals are done in 10 days," he says.
Better Capital has bought 16 companies so far, including Jaeger, the fashion chain, Everest, the glazing company, and Reader's Digest, the magazine group. He's not fussed that they are in tough industries. "By nature it's what we do," he says . . . .
)