The Carlyle Group named Harvey M. Schwartz on Monday as the private equity firm’s chief executive, nearly seven months after Kewsong Lee abruptly stepped down as chief after learning that the firm’s billionaire co-founders were planning to take a more active role in management.
Mr. Schwartz’s leadership represents a second chance for him and Carlyle. Mr. Schwartz left Goldman Sachs in 2018 after he was passed over for the bank’s top job. Carlyle has been without a permanent chief since August, when Mr. Lee shocked Wall Street by stepping down two years after becoming the firm’s sole chief executive.
Mr. Schwartz, 58, will assume his new role on Feb. 15, taking over for one of Carlyle’s co-founders, William Conway, who has been interim chief executive.
During roughly two decades at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Schwartz served as the bank’s president and co-chief operating officer as well as its chief financial officer. Since leaving the bank, he has served on the boards of SoFi Technologies and the Bank of London.
Mr. Conway and David Rubenstein, another of Carlyle’s co-founders, said in a statement about Mr. Schwartz that “given his experience, track record, and skillset, the board was unanimous in its determination that he is the right leader to drive Carlyle forward.”
The announcement comes one day before the firm is set to release its latest quarterly earnings. Carlyle, which managed $369 billion in assets at the end of September, making it one of the world’s largest private equity firms, faces economic challenges.
The industry is reckoning with declines in profitability amid investor uncertainty and a series of interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve that have made it costlier to borrow money to buy and restructure companies, which is private equity’s stock in trade.
Mr. Schwartz is expected to join a virtual town hall meeting on Monday morning with Carlyle’s employees, of which there are more than 2,000 around the world, according to a person familiar with his plans. Following that meeting, Mr. Schwartz, who will be in the company’s New York offices, is expected to start meeting the firm’s workers there, the person said.
Maureen Farrell
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