Sarkozy's brother joins Carlyle as an adviser
03 Mar 2008
Private equity giant Carlyle has hired Olivier Sarkozy, the UBS banker and half-brother of the French president, to run its financial services business.
Mr Sarkozy has been one of the key players at UBS, where he was the joint global head of investment banking at its financial institutions group.
Mr Sarkozy has worked on some of the most high profile deals in the sector in recent years, from the sale of MBNA to Bank of America to the sale of ABN Amro. He said he would continue to be an advisor to UBS.
Carlyle founder David Rubenstein said: "Olivier is a remarkable addition to our financial services team. He has an incredible track record and network that will help Carlyle capitalise on the dislocation in the financial services sector and extend our record to success to this important part of the global economy."
Carlyle established its financial services team last June. It has yet to do a deal but is understood to be looking at a variety of opportunities thrown up by the sub-prime lending crisis and subsequent credit crunch.
Mr Sarkozy regularly meets with his half brother, Nicholas, although he is based in New York, speaks English with an American accent and prefers to use the Anglicised version of his name, Oliver.
He went to boarding school in Britain and completed a masters degree in mediaeval history at St Andrews University in Scotland.
Carlyle has made several other high-profile hires in this area, including Douglas "Sandy" Warner, the former chief executive of JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Randal Quarles, a former top official at the Treasury Department
The Washington private equity firm has brought in a number of top-level executives for its new financial services group that it started last year. Earlier hirings include Sandy Warner, former chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and David Moffett, the former finance chief of U.S. Bancorp.
Sarkozy's son sparks nepotism row after being tipped for top public job
The Sarkozy dynasty was embroiled in another nepotism row today , after the French president's 23-year-old son Jean was tipped to head the public agency running Paris's La Défense , one of Europe's biggest business districts.The young Sarkozy, who has not yet finished his university degree, is currently a local councillor in the wealthy Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where his father rose to power 30 years ago. Dubbed "Prince Jean" by his critics, he has had a meteoric rise to power in his father's old
fiefdom and currently leads the rightwing council majority in the Hauts-de-Seine, the richest department in France.
The area – France's economic showcase – is planning an expansion it hopes will rival the City of London as a financial district and change the Paris skyline with daring architectural projects.
Patrick Devedjian, 65, the outgoing director and a key figure in Sarkozy's centre-right ruling UMP party, supported Jean Sarkozy, but with a barbed quote from the 17th century play, El Cid: "In souls nobly born, valour does not depend upon age."
The Socialist MP Michele Delaunay slammed what she called "nepotism and provocation". Patrick Jarry, the Communist mayor of neighbouring Nanterre and an EPAD board member, said Jean Sarkozy lacked legitimacy and his candidature was a way of ensuring "the clan" stayed in power.
Jean Sarkozy, who has struggled to shed his image as "Le Dauphin" [child heir apparent to the French throne], hit back, saying: "I ask to be judged not on my name, but on my actions and results."
He said the controversy was "pointless" and argued that he had nearly two years' council experience. Sarkozy's second son from his first marriage, he has found it difficult to escape the presidential family soap-opera played out on France's gossip pages. He is married to a retail heiress and is expecting his first child – the president's first grandchild – in December.
CARLYLE OWNS TALARIS (de la Rue)
