David Rubenstein

If you love a good conspiracy theory but find Ron Paul’s and Rick Perry’s calls to kill Ben Bernanke for counterfeiting a little played out, do we have some good news for you. The Carlyle Group, a mild mannered private equity firm by day that at night transforms into an evil conspiracy among George Bush, Skull & Bones, the Saudi royal family annd the Illuminati, is about to get a lot more public attention.

Bloomberg reports that Carlyle is shopping an IPO. While we do worry that IPOs by smart private equity managers have a pretty solid tradition of top-ticking (Blackstone IPOed in June 2007 and the market has never been the same since), we like David Rubenstein’s efforts to get valued for making good investments instead of just for having a ton of money:
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Jimmy Lee, JPMorgan’s legendary dealmaker, just finished up on CNBC’s new show, Strategy Session. Not only did he say the credit markets “are wide open,” but he said up to $10 billion in debt is now available for a big LBO, provided it sits on top of about $5 billion in equity and is, of course, the right kind of company. That jibes with what Carlyle Group’s David Rubenstein told the Washington Post earlier this week.

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  • 04 May 2010 at 11:40 AM

Caption Contest Tuesday

[Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

[Cavorting at a Bloomberg cocktail party before the White House Correspondents' Dinner]