Changing perception of private equity in Germany - finally!

As you might know I have been an investment manager for small and medium sized companies in the time before the MBA.
The environment for this industry was difficult since Franz Müntefering accused private equity firms in 2005 of being "locusts", chewing up good companies before spitting them out again.
Numerous industry professionals draw the funniest pictures of other animals to prove the opposite (especially that of a honeybee :-)) and were more or less successful in changing the perception.

Now it seems as if the general picture of private equity comes back at least to "neutral" as today's FT.com article implies.