Carlyle is now a middle market fund

How does everyone feel about the dismantling of both the consumer and now the tech PE groups? Does Carlyle’s “brand” still make it a good choice for candidates even though they post an IRR below the Marcus Goldman Sachs high yield savings account? Seems like everyone is leaving and it will inevitably die as a fund…

26 Comments
 

I always believed Carlyle success was extremly tied to Rubenstein's popularity/visibility, so not much of a future without him down the road imo

incentives trumph ethics
 

Just a sign of things to come for a lot of funds that grew to above $10b IMO.

 

Worst MF and it's not even close. It's still has strong historic reputation for things like MBAs but not the best place if goal is longer term career in PE. The Senior Associate recruiting process from a MF is very hard and more and more people are ending up at LMMs or bad returning MMs. The people that I know that are the happiest with their post 2 year associate stints are the rare ones that got the promote to SA (almost all at UMM/MM firms) or got into Harvard or Stanford MBA (increasingly rare from even MFs). Think there's like 20 firms minimum I'd take over Carlyle rn (all the other MFs + quite a lot of UMMs).

 
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There's been many versions of this thread, which are all essentially true, but will offer two caveats: 

A) Q2 earnings show their exits from their latest flagship are outperforming the market by a lot, which is at least a good step toward recovery and the next flagship fundraise;

B) Their midlevel is much less crammed than most similar MFs or "hot" MM/UMM names. Yes, you probably have a better chance of making partner there by being an aide to a Senator (or a Senator yourself) than by actually advancing through the PE ranks, for reasons that are a little historical and a little idiosyncratic in nature. But the midlevel there only has like 1-2 VPs, Principals, etc. in each vertical and the return offer (or the offer to stay) for Associates is far from cutthroat. It's a great place to set a cash comp baseline for a few years and still one of the best brands you can have on your resume for either or both of MBA or lateral recruiting.

Yes, you shouldn't take this offer over H&F or, e.g., Arcline, but let's not act like the seat doesn't have its benefits.

 

Not just Partner. When GGC was dying or Oak Hill was “pausing” or Abry is…what Abry is today or Onex was Onex-ing, maybe 5-10% of the industry would take VP roles at those funds.

But what % of the 2nd or 3rd year Associate pool would take a Carlyle VP role right now? 80%? 85%?

People were making these doomer takes about BainCap and TPG too recently and they’re just not something to plot a career around imo.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard that Carlyle has not been the same since the departures of some of their big rockstars like Glenn Youngkin and Peter Clare (some people say that it should have been him who should have been new CEO over Harvey Schwartz).

Again, just what I’ve heard, so please take it with a grain of salt and feel free to correct any errors from the grapevine here.

 

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