Carlyle Group, the giant global private equity firm with over $86 billion of assets
under management, is taking steps to attract more women and minorities into the private equity industry.
The firm has teamed up with The Robert Toigo Foundation to create an MBA fellowship program which includes time working at Carlyle, and experience with some of its portfolio companies and investors, according to Reuters.
The article quotes David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle, as saying the private equity industry is “behind” investment banks and law firms in hiring women and minorities. “We hope this will lead to our recruiting some very talented minority MBAs,” he said. ”In our particular case, we do have the most senior women in the buyout world who are partners here, and we have a number of senior minority black partners, but we could do better,” he said. The firm has pledged $1 million over four years for the fellowship program.
The three-part fellowship rotation will provide each fellow with exposure to Carlyle, a portfolio company, and include focused private equity training from professionals at Toigo. Selected fellows receive an annual stipend, including a $50,000 MBA tuition payment to help pay off their MBA loans.
Second-year minority MBA students who are interested in private equity jobs can find more information and apply for the Toigo Private Equity MBA Fellowship by visiting www.toigofoundation.org
This week marked the sudden passing of Bruce Wasserstein, one of the world’s most successful private equity investors and richest men. Wasserstein, 61, died of heart-related complications in a New York Hospital.
Wasserstein worked on deals valued at more than $250 billion during his 32-year career in finance. His hardball tactics were immortalized in the 1990 book, Barbarians at the Gate, which told the story of the private equity firm KKR’s takeover of food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco. At $30 billion, it was the biggest leveraged buyout in history for many years. Wasserstein was among the first bankers to use public relations advisors to gain the upper hand in a takeover, according to The Times Online.
After earning a Harvard MBA and attending the London School of Economics, Wasserstein worked as an attorney and then joined First Boston in 1977. He left to start his private equity career, setting up his own advisory firm, Wasserstein Perella & Co in 1988, which he sold to Dresdner Bank in 2001 for $1.5 billion. He joined Lazard Ltd. in 2002 and became its chief executive and chairman in 2005.
Wasserstein was famous for his strategic thinking, and his ability to convince bidders to pay more than they planned for an acquisition. He invented the “Pac Man” defense where a takeover target turns around and buys its would-be acquirer instead. The large private equity deals he worked over his career included:
- Robert Campeau’s $6.6 billion takeover of Federated Department Stores, which included Bloomingdale’s
- $9 billion purchase of Conoco by DuPont
- The $10.7 billion purchase of Getty Oil by Texaco
- Time Inc.’s $13.4 billion deal for Warner Communications
- KKR’s $30 billion takeover of RJR Nabisco
David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, expects the private equity industry to come roaring back even stronger than it was when we finally pull out of this recession. And that could be good news for private equity job seekers.
Speaking with Bloomberg Television, Rubenstein admitted that Carlyle, the world’s second largest private equity firm, did buy some companies at prices and debt levels that were too high. But now he sees opportunities in distressed assets. Both Carlyle and its larger rival, The Blackstone Group, are bypassing the giant public-to-private buyouts that made headlines before the crash and instead are focusing on smaller deals for struggling businesses such as regional banks. Both firms were involved in buying the failed Florida lender BankUnited Financial earlier this year.
The only clouds on the private equity horizon are potential European Union regulations that would make it more difficult to invest in private equity companies, and perhaps rising debt levels that will force the U.S. to pay higher interest rates, he said.
