Alchemy and Carlyle coin it as private equity exits set record

Times
By Tom Bawden



ALCHEMY PARTNERS and Carlyle Group, the prominent private equity firms, made record profits last year as the buyout industry’s disposal of businesses hit a high after three years of weak sales.

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Carlyle Group, the American private equity firm advised by John Major, the former Conservative Prime Minister, also made a record profit in 2004, of about $3.3 billion (£1.8 billion), after selling, floating and recapitalising 71 businesses.

The disposals included the sale of Carlyle’s remaining stake in United Defense Industries, one of the key suppliers of tanks and rocket launchers to US forces in Iraq. In total, the 71 so-called exits and partial exits yielded Carlyle an average return of just under three times its equity investment in those companies.

Carlyle also invested about $2.7 billion in 107 new deals last year and raised $7.8 billion of new investment capital.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1484703,00.html

UNACCEPTABLE face of capitalism: Carlyle's John Major:

Nils Pratley
Tuesday February 15, 2005
The Guardian

The Carlyle Group, the American private equity firm whose former Saudi links were highlighted by film-maker Michael Moore, yesterday reported its "best ever" year and said it returned $5.3bn (£2.8bn) to its investors in 2004.

The performance underlined the sheer size of Carlyle. The group withdrew either partially or completely from 71 investments and made 107 new investments. It raised $7.8bn for investment and the amount of cash it returned was more than twice the level of 2003.

Carlyle's London managing director, Robert Easton, said Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 had had no effect on the day-to-day running of the company.

"In defence we have less than 1% of our funds deployed, but it is the defence sector that gets most noise from the likes of Michael Moore," he said. "Defence is now such a small part of our business because we have grown massively in other sectors."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1414723,00.html

Maybe they're confident that there'll be no fallout from the RIGGS BANK fiasco..........

It caused them to buy up the Lowes theater chain!

Of all the big theater chains, Lowes showed the most enthusiasm
for F9/11. They had it showing in every theater in the chain from day 1,
often on multiple screens and with shows running well after midnight.