The greed and leverage boys had a great year which capped a magnificent decade. At the close of 2009 who could imagine The Carlyle Group going from $88.6 billion in assets under management to $223 billion today?
2009 closed with Carlye joint venture partner Riverstone settling with the New York Attorney General for pay-to-play allegations. Carlyle had already settled for $20 million to make similar allegations disappear. Settlement money went to the New York State Common Retirement Fund.
Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein repeatedly lobbied to keep private equity's preferred taxation. Flashback to 2011:
I watched a video interview of (David) Rubenstein and his arrogance is really beyond tolerance. He was going on about the debt ceiling problem and how there would need to be cuts in services and higher taxes. When the reporter asked him about tax on carried interest he turned really disdainful and said that this "only" amounted to $22 billion over some number of years and this was not serious money. Boy, nothing like everybody doing their small part to save the country from oblivion!2020 looks to supply more green for private equity underwriters (PEU). It's been a PEU decade. The billionaire boys are a country unto themselves.
