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Barbarians at Carlyle's gates
Samuel Johnson once opined: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
This seems to be the feeling with the private equity folks at the Carlyle Group. Basically, they operate a troubled affiliate, Carlyle Capital. Unfortunately, the fund is chock-full of mortgage securities -- and, as a result, there are a variety of margin calls. Perhaps as much as $16 billion could be liquidated (in a market that doesn't want to make bids on any kind of mortgage paper).
So far, Carlyle's exposure is fairly light, with about $670 in capitalization (which includes Carlyle funds, associated investors and public shareholders). And confidence is at dire lows. After all, the shares of Carlyle Capital have been suspended (the fund is listed in Amsterdam).



