Abu Dhabi takes ownership stake in Carlyle Group

Abu Dhabi takes ownership stake in Carlyle Group
United Arab Emirate investment ties with Bush family deepen

The Financial Times announced last night the government of Abu Dhabi has made an investment in the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private investment firm with close ties to former President George H. W. Bush and his family, as well as to top government officials in the Reagan and Clinton administrations.

Mubadala, a wholly owned investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, bought a 7.5 percent share of the Carlyle Group in a transaction in which the deal price was struck at a 10 percent discount to a valuation of $20 billion for all of the Carlyle Group.

Abu Dhabi is the largest of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates and the capital.

Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi ruling family is the chairman of Mubadala.

WND reported Dubai International Capital, a private equity investment capital firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dubai Holdings, has commonly participated in co-investments with the Carlyle Group.

Dubai, like Abu Dhabi, is one of the seven emirates that form the UAE.

WND reported yesterday Dubai, in a complex set of transactions, is moving to acquire 19.9 percent of the Nasdaq stock market in New York, in the first equity transaction which would place a Middle Eastern government in an ownership position in a key U.S. stock exchange.

As a result of the transaction, Dubai will also acquire 28 percent of the London Stock Exchange, one of the oldest and largest stock exchanges in the world.

The transaction is being made through Borse Dubai, a holding company 100 percent owned by the government of the Emirate of Dubai and controlled by Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the head of the Dubai ruling family.