HONG KONG -- Global private-equity firm Carlyle Group LP said yesterday it raised $668 million for its Carlyle Asia Growth Partners III Fund, which invests in private companies across China, India, Japan and South Korea. [...]
Carlyle Asia Growth Partners III is the third fund managed by the Carlyle Asia Growth Capital group, which has an aggregate committed capital of about $1 billion in the region.
Carlyle Asia Growth Capital also manages Carlyle Asia Venture Partners I, which was launched in 2000 and has $159 million in assets, and Carlyle Asia Venture Partners II, which was launched in 2002 and has $164 million in assets. Combined, those two funds have invested in 37 companies in Asia.
U.S.-based Carlyle Group has $39 billion under management globally.
"We look for companies with outstanding management and track records, differentiating and proven business models, as well as large potential markets," said Wayne Wen-Tsui Tsou, Carlyle Asia Growth Capital's managing director.
Suddenly the tapping tiptoes of wimpy WASP ex-presidents with billion-dollar purses can be heard skittering into dozens of Asian boardrooms, according to the June 2006 edition of Asia Business & Investing:
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush probably had no visa problems when he quietly visited China recently.
Late-night calls to contacts in Beijing not only determined why the former president was in China, but his favorite Beijing restaurant and hotel.
It turns out the former GOP president was in China doing some legwork for his pals at the enormously powerful, and very privately held Carlyle Group. It's a Washington, D.C., investment firm with huge clout and a huge international roster of advisors and managers.
Its Chairman is Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., its Chairman Emeritus is Frank C. Carlucci, Senior Counselor is James A. Baker, III (you remember him from the 2000 Bush Supreme Court presidential campaign) and its senior advisors are Richard G. Darman and Arthur Levitt.
Trust me, the Carlyle team is just as well stocked at the bottom as it is at the top.
Anyway, it looks as though Bush 41 was in China because the Carlyle Group is opening a Shanghai office. It plans to invest up to $1 billion in China over the next two years.
The most enlightening part of this article is seeing how foreign business interests regard American democracy as the laughable sham it is: "... James A. Baker, III (you remember him from the 2000 Bush Supreme Court presidential campaign)."
"Supreme Court presidential campaign" is the best four-word description of 2000 I've ever heard.
Poppy's fortune cookie says this: "You will get richer and richer, and then die." My prediction is that Poppy will die in 2010, the one year when there is no estate tax — compliments of his son — and his heap of Carlyle millions will eventually go to Jenna tax-free so she can invest it, as only she can, in vodka and Marlboro Lights.
