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The Carlyle Group is a Washington, D.C. based global private equity investment firm with more than $58.5 billion of equity capital under management.[1] The firm operates four fund families, focusing on leveraged buyouts, venture & growth capital, real estate and leveraged finance investments.

 

The firm employs more than 395 investment professionals in 18 countries with several offices in North America, Europe and Asia; its portfolio companies employ more than 250,000 people worldwide.

 

Carlyle has over 1000 investors in 57 countries.


The Carlyle Group

  • Type - Private Partnership

  • Founded - 1987

  • Headquarters - Washington, D.C.

  • Key people

    • Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., Chairman

    • William E. Conway, Jr., Founder

    • Daniel A. D'Aniello, Founder

    • David M. Rubenstein, Founder

    • John F. Harris, CFO

  • Industry - Financial Services

  • Products

    • Management buyouts

    • Real estate

    • Leveraged finance

    • Venture and growth capital

  • Revenue - Undisclosed to public

  • Employees - 750

  • Website - www.carlyle.com


Origin


Carlyle was founded in 1987 by:

  1. William E. Conway, Jr.

  2. Daniel A. D'Aniello

  3. Stephen L. Norris

  4. Greg A. Rosenbaum

  5. David M. Rubenstein

Rosenbaum left in 1987; Norris left in 1995. The three remaining founders are reported to collectively own around a 50% interest in the group's general partnership. The California Public Employees Retirement System (or CalPERS) is the only institution which owns a stake in the partnership, holding 5.5% of Carlyle.

As they wanted the firm to outlive them, the founders named the firm after the upper east side hotel in New York City, the Carlyle Hotel, where they first met to discuss the idea. Carlyle's current chairman is Lou Gerstner, former chairman and CEO of IBM and Nabisco.

 

 

Specialization


Carlyle deals in the following industries:

  1. Aerospace & Defense

  2. Automotive

  3. Consumer & Retail

  4. Energy & Power

  5. Healthcare

  6. Real Estate

  7. Technology & Business Services

  8. Telecommunications & Media

  9. Transportation

The Carlyle Group's investments are focused on East Asia, Europe and North America, with most investment money coming from the United States (65%), Europe (25%), Asia (6%), Latin America, and the Middle East.

 

Defense investments represent about 1% of the group's current portfolio — though this translates, for example, into a 33.8% ownership of QinetiQ, the UK's recently privatized defense company.

 

 

Current portfolio and major acquisitions


Though known for its expertise in aerospace and defense, Carlyle invested more than thirty percent of its assets in the telecommunications and media sector. Noted portfolio companies are:

  • Dex Media, the former directories business of Qwest Communications

  • Willcom, a Japanese wireless company

  • Casema, a Dutch cable company

  • Insight Communications, the ninth largest cable company in the U.S.

The Carlyle Group is also a major investor in US Investigations Services, which is the privatized arm of the United States Office of Personnel Management's Office of Federal Investigations.

Brand-name companies that Carlyle owns include: Dunkin' Brands, which owns Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, and dental hygiene company. Water Pik. Carlyle also recently took rental car company Hertz public.

On June 28, 2007, Carlyle announced that it would partner with Onex Corporation to buy the Allison Transmission unit from General Motors for $5.6 billion.

 

On July 2, 2007, it was disclosed that the Carlyle Group was looking to buy Virgin Media UK cable business. Richard Branson is the largest shareholder, and the Virgin Group own the name Virgin, and Virgin Media have the rights to use the name Virgin for 10 years.

 

 

Controversy


Critics of the Carlyle Group frequently note its connections to various political figures. Some of the sectors and companies in which it invests are highly sensitive to political activity; indeed, its actions may be viewed as a form of political arbitrage. This may create conflicts of interest when political decision makers have their own personal wealth linked to such investments. Carlyle is the largest private equity firm located in Washington, D.C., its corporate headquarters are located on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Critics refer to Carlyle as a private military contractor, because it owns controlling or partial interests in several military contractors. For example, it used to own United Defense Industries, which was developing the Crusader artillery project. This project was funded in eight consecutive Clinton budgets but was cancelled soon after Bush became president, eliminating the remaining $9 billion of the original $11 billion contract. A much smaller contract was awarded to United Defense to capture technologies developed during the eight years of development.

In the book House of Bush, House of Saud, author Craig Unger states that Saudi Arabian interests have given $1.4 billion to firms connected to the Bush family. Nearly 85% of the $1.4 billion, or about $1.18 billion, refers to Saudi Arabian government contracts awarded to defense contractor BDM in the early to mid 1990s. Carlyle, however, sold its interest in BDM before former President George H. W. Bush joined as an advisor.

Former President George H.W. Bush retired from Carlyle in October 2003. George W. Bush served on the Board of Directors of early Carlyle acquisition Caterair. Bush left the board in 1992 to run for Governor of Texas.

The Saudi Arabian relatives of Osama bin Laden were also investors in Carlyle until October 2001 when the family sold its $2.02 million investment back to the firm in light of the public controversy surrounding bin Laden’s family after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The bin Laden family has publicly disowned the al-Qaeda leader. Osama bin Laden has not publicly known or acknowledged economic interest in Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), whose investments were in part managed by the Carlyle Group until the arrangement was terminated by mutual consent.

The Carlyle group have also been criticized for making excessive profit from the full public sales of the former government-run UK defense research establishment, which post sale became the private company QinetiQ.

 

 

Notable current and former employees and affiliated persons

Business

  1. G. Allen Andreas - Chairman of the Archer Daniels Midland Company

  2. Daniel Akerson - company director

  3. Joaquin Avila - investment banker

  4. Laurent Beaudoin - CEO of Bombardier (1979-)

  5. Paul Desmarais - Chairman of the Power Corporation of Canada

  6. Arthur Levitt - former Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

  7. Karl Otto Pöhl - former President of the Bundesbank

  8. George Soros - billionaire and political backer

Politics and public service

  1. James Baker III, former United States Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush, Staff member under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, Carlyle Senior Counselor, served in this capacity from 1993 to 2005

  2. George H. W. Bush, former U.S. President, Senior Advisor to the Carlyle Asia Advisory Board from April 1998 to October 2003

  3. George W. Bush, current U.S. President. Was appointed in 1990 to the Board of Directors of one of Carlyle's first acquisitions, an airline food business called Caterair, which Carlyle eventually sold at a loss. Bush left the board in 1992 to run for Governor of Texas

  4. Frank C. Carlucci, former United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989; Also, former Princeton wrestling partner of former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Carlyle Chairman and Chairman Emeritus from 1989 to 2005

  5. Richard Darman, former Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under George H. W. Bush, Senior Advisor and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group from 1993 to the present

  6. Allan Gotlieb, Canadian ambassador to the United States (1981-89) and member of Carlyle's Canadian advisory board

  7. Liu Hong-Ru, former chairman of China's Securities Regulatory Commission

  8. William Kennard, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President Bill Clinton, Carlyle's Managing Director in the Telecommunications & Media Group from 2001 to the present

  9. Arthur Levitt, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under President Bill Clinton, Carlyle Senior Advisor from 2001 to the present

  10. Peter Lougheed - Premier of Alberta (1971-85)

  11. John Major, former British Prime Minister, Chairman, Carlyle Europe from 2002 until 2005

  12. Frank McKenna, Canadian ambassador to the United States and former member of Carlyle's Canadian advisory board

  13. Mack McLarty, White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton, President of Kissinger McLarty Associates, Carlyle Senior Advisor from 2003 to the present

  14. Anand Panyarachun, former Prime Minister of Thailand (twice), former member of the Carlyle Asia Advisory Board until the board was disbanded in 2004

  15. Fidel Ramos, former president of the Philippines, Carlyle Asia Advisor Board Member until the board was disbanded in 2004

  16. Dan Senor - political consultant

  17. Thaksin Shinawatra, deposed Prime Minister of Thailand, former member of board, who resigned on taking office in 2001

  18. Luis Téllez Kuenzler, Mexican economist, current Secretary of Communications and Transportation under the Calderon administration and former Secretary of Energy under the Zedillo administration

Other

  • Norman Pearlstine - editor-in-chief of Time (1995-2005)