Carlyle Group

Carlyle Group
Formation	1987
Founder	•  William E. Conway Jr. •  Daniel A. D'Aniello •  David M. Rubenstein
Headquarters	Washington, D.C., United StatesAmsterdam, Netherlands
Type	commercial
Subgroups	BDM International
Staff	1,650
Member of	Business Roundtable
A "private global investment firm" with around 1400 employees which has become the world's second largest private capital firm. Close connections to the deep state are suspected.

The Carlyle Group describes itself as "a private global investment firm with more than $203 billion in assets under management across 126 funds and 139 fund of funds vehicles. Founded in 1987 in Washington, DC, Carlyle has grown into one of the world’s largest and most successful investment firms, with more than 1,600 professionals operating in 40 offices in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, Asia and Australia."

In April 2003, it was reported that the Carlyle Group is managed by a team of former US Government personnel including its president Frank Carlucci, former deputy director of the CIA before becoming Defence Secretary. His deputy is James Baker II, who was Secretary of State under George Bush senior. The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Laden’s family, who played a principal role in helping George W Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars. The connection between the Bush and bin Laden families can also be traced to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the 1990s. Members of the Anglo Pakistani bank’s board of directors included Richard Helms and William Casey, business partners of George Bush senior and former CIA agents. During their time at BCCI both Helms and Casey worked alongside fellow director, Adnan Khashoggi, who also represented the bin Laden family’s interests in the US. The same report indicated that the Carlyle Group meeting in Lisbon will discuss the relationship between the Saudi Binladen Corporation and Osama bin Laden. Many US officials claim that the SBC continues to finance his political activities, and has done so for many years. If true, this would place George Bush senior and his colleagues at the Carlyle Group in an embarrassing position. As managers of SBC’s financial investments they might well be accused of indirectly aiding and abetting the United States’ number one enemy.

Official Narrative

Carlyle states that its "mission is to become the premier global private equity firm and to generate extraordinary returns while maintaining our good name and the good name of our partners. Toward that end, we have established a family of funds in the Carlyle name and a network of offices around the world. We maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct and employ a conservative, proven and disciplined approach to investing."

Background

Many influential characters have worked for or invested in the group. They include among others, John Major, former UK Prime Minister; Fidel Ramos, former Philippines President; Park Tae Joon, former South Korean Prime Minister; Saudi Prince Al-Walid; Colin Powell, former Secretary of State; James Baker III, former Secretary of State; Caspar Weinberger, former Defense Secretary; Richard Darman, former White House Budget Director; the billionaire George Soros, and some bin Laden family members. You can add Alice Albright, daughter of Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State; Arthur Lewitt, former SEC head; William Kennard, former head of the FCC, to this list. Finally, add in the Europeans: Karl Otto Poehl, former Bundesbank president; Henri Martre, former president of Aerospatiale; and Bilderberg steering committee member Etienne Davignon.

History

In February 2003, when John Major was the Carlyle Group's European Chairman, it acquired a 31% share in the publicly-owned British defence firm QinetiQ (whose then Chairman was Pauline Neville-Jones) for £42m. QinetiQ was privatised in January 2006 for £1.3 billion netting the Carlyle Group a profit of over £300 million.

In March 2008, "Carlyle Capital, an affiliate of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, said that its negotiations with lenders had broken down and that it was in default on $16.6 billion in loans. Carlyle had borrowed the money to buy mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All appeared well until the prices of those bonds declined and the lenders made a margin call — a demand that Carlyle put up more collateral to cover the loans."

The following is taken from Hoover's Online:

In 1987 T. Rowe Price director Edward Mathias brought together David Rubenstein, a former President Carter aide; Stephen Norris and Daniel D'Aniello, both executives with Marriott Corp.; William Conway, Jr., the CFO of MCI; and Greg Rosenbaum, a VP with a New York investment firm. They pooled their experience along with a load of money from T. Rowe Price Associates, Alex. Brown & Sons (now Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown), First Interstate (now part of Wells Fargo), and Pittsburgh's Mellon family to form a buyout firm.

Named after the Carlyle Hotel in New York, the firm opted to make Washington, DC, its headquarters, emphasising its close connection to the US government. In 1989 it wooed the well-connected Frank Carlucci, who had served as Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense, to join the group. Soon thereafter, Carlyle began making more high-profile deals. That year it acquired Coldwell Banker's commercial real estate operations (sold 1996) and Caterair International, Marriott's airline food services (sold 1995). Carlucci helped redirect the firm's focus to the downsizing defense industry. Among its targets were Harsco Corp. (1990), BDM International (1991), and LTV Corp.'s missile and aircraft units (1992). Carlyle helped overhaul their operations and make them attractive (for the right price) to the industry's elite, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

As the company's reputation grew, so did its cast of players. Among its new backers were James Baker and Richard Darman (both Reagan and Bush administration alums) and investor George Soros, who chipped in some $100 million into the Carlyle Partners L.P. buyout fund. With the help of its 'access capitalists' such as Baker and Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal (whom the firm helped add to his fortune in a 1991 Citicorp stock transaction), Carlyle made deals in the Middle East and Western Europe (including a bailout of Euro Disney) in the mid-1990s.

While the firm continued to be a side in the iron triangle, acquiring such defense companies as aircraft castings maker Howmet in 1995, it picked up a grab bag of holdings, such as natural food grocer Fresh Fields Markets (1994; sold 1996); the quick turnaround helped build Carlyle's war chest. The firm also began investing in industrial-cleanup companies, seeing increased government spending as a major opportunity for profit.

As Carlyle's esteem rose, so did the number of its investors. In the late 1990s the firm launched buyout funds targeting Asia (closed 1999), Europe (closed 1998), Russia, and Latin America. At home, it faced a dwindling number of opportunities as the long-running bull market drove up prices and more investors chased fewer deals. Among those was its partnership with Cadbury Schweppes to buy the Dr Pepper Bottling Co. of Texas and merge it with its own American Bottling Co.

Carlyle began the new century by launching Carlyle Asset Management Group, selling its stake in Le Figaro to Socpresse, acquiring Rexnord and a majority stake in CSX Lines. Extending its reach, the company partnered with GMT Communications Partners and acquired Casema in 2003.

2001 Investor Conference

On the day Osama bin Laden's men attacked America, Shafiq bin Laden, described as an estranged brother of the terrorist, was at an investment conference in Washington, DC, along with two people who are close to President George Bush: his father, the first President Bush, and James Baker, the former secretary of state who masterminded the legal campaign that secured Dubya's move to the White House. The conference was hosted by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that manages billions of dollars, including, at the time, some bin Laden family wealth. It also employs Messrs Bush and Baker.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, when no one was being allowed in or out of the United States, many members of the bin Laden family in America were spirited home to Saudi Arabia. The revival of defence spending that followed greatly increased the value of the Carlyle Group's investments in defence companies.

Acquisitions

The Carlyle Group is a majority owner of intelligence contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton. In June 2014, the Carlyle Group acquired the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Iron Triangle

The Carlyle Group makes much of its connections to top political leaders.

Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan organization in Washington stated "It's not possible to get closer to the administration than Carlyle is. George Bush senior earned money from private interests that worked for the government of which his son was president. You could even say that the president could one day profit financially, through his father's investments, from the political decisions he himself took".

 

Employees on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End
William Kennard	Director
John Major	European Advisory Board member	1998	14 May 2001
John Major	Chairman of Carlyle Europe	May 2001	2004

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Articles and reports

• Center for Public Integrity, "Investing in War: The Carlyle Group profits from government and conflict."
• "Meet the Carlyle Group. Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Making Billions in the War on Terrorism", News From Reality ... series of articles and links.
• "Carlyle Group Spins the Revolving Door. How Bush and Other Ex-Politicos Profit from Connections and Access" at Democracy NOW!, no date.
• Carlyle Group, Global Security, no date.
• The Carlyle Group, Spectrezine.com, no date.
• Bush-Carlyle Group Archive, Buzz Flash Perspective, no date.
• Jerry Politex, CHRONOLOGY: The Bushes And The Carlyle Group, Bushnews.com, January 10 and 12, 2000; includes links to supporting articles.
• The Bin Ladens Bail on Carlyle Group, From the Wilderness, October 26, 2001.
• Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger, "The ex-presidents' club", Guardian Unlimited, Wednesday October 31, 2001.
• Dan Briody, "Carlyle's way. Making a mint inside 'the iron triangle' of defense, government, and industry", Red Herring, January 8, 2002.
• Mark Fineman, Arms Buildup Enriches Firm Staffed by Big Guns. Defense: Ex-president and other elites are behind weapon-boosting Carlyle Group, Truthout.org, January 10 2002.
• Tim Shorrock, Making Money, the Bush Way, The Nation, February 19, 2002.
• Tim Shorrock, Crony Capitalism Goes Global, The Nation, March 14, 2002.
• Tim Shorrock, Company Man (Carlucci), The Nation, March 25, 2002.
• Geoffrey Gray, "How the Pentagon Learned to Love the Weapon No One Wanted. The Carlyle Connection", The Village Voice, May 1-7, 2002.
• The Carlyle/United Defense Money Trail, compiled from MSN, May 10, 2002.
• G. Bush I as employee of bin Laden family/Carlyle Group.
• How closely is Osama bin Laden involved in his family business?
• Jamie Doward, "'Ex-presidents club' gets fat on conflict", The Observer, 23 March 2003.
• US Arms Group Heads for Lisbon, The Portugal News, April 4, 2003.
• Dan Briody, The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group (John Wiley & Sons, April 2003).
• "What Did Eisenhower Mean When He Warned of a Military Industrial Complex? Take a Look at the Carlyle Group," interview with Dan Briody, Buzzflash.com, June 23, 2003.
• "Exposed: The Carlyle Group," a 48-minute video documentary, Tegenlicht webspecial, June 2003. (Note: The first two minutes of this documentary are in Dutch; the rest is in English.)
• Connections Helped United Defense Business, Bloomberg News Service, 5 August 2003; "Carlyle Group Inc. has turned a $180-million 1997 investment in United Defense Industries Inc. into $1.2 billion. ... United Defense has acknowledged Carlyle's connections helped its business. 'Our board of directors consists of members who have served in senior positions within the U.S. government, such as secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command,' it said in its October 2001 prospectus. The management and board's 'unique insights into the U.S. Department of Defense and allied militaries is one of our key assets.'"
• 11 December 2003: "Carlyle Group in $350 million Asia plan", Business Standard.
• 19 April 2004: "Pipeline plan leads back to high-profile investing group" by Robert Trigaux, St. Petersburg Times.