Barron's reported on "The Whodunit Advisor":
When not advising celebrities and others, Marvin McIntryre of Morgan Stanley pens thrillers set in D.C. and on Wall Street. Imagining private eyes, recommending private equity.
Plenty of ink has been spilled looking back on the credit crisis, but no author has had the perch of Marvin McIntyre, a top Morgan Stanley financial advisor whose office is just blocks away from the White House.
Oddly, The Carlyle Group is also located just blocks from the White House.
In 2011, McIntyre self-published a novel called Insiders, which tracks a sadistic hedge fund manager preying on politicians and CEOs. The story's hero is a financial advisor named Mac McGregor, who tries to balance the safety of his family and the needs of his clients while helping the government pursue the rogue investor.The Carlyle Group lost their Blue Wave Partners hedge fund and Carlyle Capital Corporation (CCC) before the fall 2008 financial crisis. Carlyle got back in the hedge fund business in a big way the last two years.
In real life McIntyre plugged Carlyle in the Barron's piece:
McIntyre's distrust of hedge funds extends beyond the fictional realm. He cautions his clients against hedge funds and their inherent need to add risk when returns go south. Instead, McIntyre puts faith in private-equity managers; he has long-running ties to David Rubenstein, the Carlyle Group's co-CEO, and likens private equity to the stock market "with advantages."
As for returns going south Carlyle made over $650 million in capital calls to CalPERS in the 2008 financial crisis.
With 2008 in the rearview mirror, McIntyre isn't letting down his guard, or his writing. In his upcoming third novel—tentatively titled Upside Down—financial perfidies give way to political corruption.
Carlyle has other sinister stories, including bribery of a Congressman's wife and losing another Congressman's $20 million investment. Carlyle affiliate SemGroup imploded from over $3 billion in bad energy bets, while another affiliate suffered 25 patient deaths in Hurricane Katrina and its toxic aftermath. Carlyle's LifeCare Hospitals and Landmark Aviation have nightmarish stories, which the George W. Bush White House kindly kept hidden.
The book is a page turner, packed with lurid scenes of sex and murder.Carlyle has a number of lurid stories, Synagro, LifeCare, SemGroup, Brintons, Blue Wave Partners, CCC, and Oriental Trading (complete with toxic jewelry for kids). Marvin McIntyre is in the business and that requires PEU pandering. There's plenty to mine at Carlyle, but McIntyre is better off looking the other way.