The Carlyle Group is in talks with South Park creators for an $800 million loan (Bloomberg).
The loan to Park County, a media company created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone to manage their various assets, would be backed by the intellectual property from the hit TV show....
South Park has a rich history of tackling the unsafe:
"I remember thinking "this is so wrong", but at the same time couldn't stop laughing. South Park at it's best."
Which makes it a great fit for a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU). I wonder if Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein sees any historical parallels with South Park's "cripple fight" and the current turmoil within the Red political team around a House Speaker?
It may become the subject of Carlyle's "Remembrance of Things Past." Carlyle's Jason Thomas helped advise the White House into the Fall 2008 financial crisis.
The White House, National Economic Council, Washington, DC
Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director for Policy Development, 2006-2008
In this capacity, Mr. Thomas acted as the primary adviser to the President for public finance.Carlyle's South Park loan, should it go through, likely ensures the show will never do an episode mocking the greed and leverage boys. There will never be a Jason character fretting over the collapse of the global financial system outside the Oval Office. There will never be a David character strolling through the halls of Congress non-lobbying lobbying to keep his preferred "carried interest" taxation.
I wonder how the investment did under Carlyle's ESG scoring, especially their social and human capital dimensions?
Update 11-4-23: Carlyle's Jason Thomas authored a report "Brave New World AI and Its Downstream Implications."
