Do Not Fall for Glenn Youngkin's Claims of Business Acumen

Glenn Youngkin's political ads running in media markets across Virginia deliberately hide his far right extremism - his is the darling of The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group -  and stress his business success.  Yes, Youngkin made a lot of money at Carlyle Group, us a piece in Bloomberg.com lays out, a considerable amount of Youngkin's success came from being with the company at the right time and benefitting from its growth.  However, his leadership and investing acumen appear to have been something other that what Youngkin would have one believe.  Indeed, in one of the last big ventures Youngkin headed up before his retirement/being forced out saw a client lose 51% of its investment.  Virginian's cannot afford to allow Trump endorsed Youngkin to win in November and inflict such financial failure on the Commonwealth.  Don't fall for his propaganda.  Here are highlights from Bloomberg:

By Glenn Youngkin’s account, Virginia and its economy are “in the ditch.” So much so that he gave up his dream job atop Carlyle Group Inc. to get the state back on track.

The Republican nominee for governor is now ubiquitous on TV and the internet, driving home the opening pitch of his candidacy: “I’ve spent the last 30 years building business and creating jobs, leading a team of nearly 2,000 people who trusted me to get things done.”

Yet people close to the private-equity firm have been chafing over the picture Youngkin paints of his investing acumen and the circumstances of his departure. In his final decade there, he shepherded several bets and strategies that chalked up losses, and some of them are still being unwound.

After Carlyle’s founders gave him a shot at co-running the firm in 2018, he flamed out. In an industry where leadership teams work together for decades, his co-CEO quickly established dominance, diminishing Youngkin’s clout.

Youngkin, 54, exited Carlyle in September and quickly became a name in conservative politics, railing against abortion and critical race theory, and vowing to stand up for the Second Amendment and election security. His take on Virginia’s economy is dire, faulting Democrats for raising taxes and overzealously restricting commerce to fight Covid-19.

But at Carlyle the circumstances of his exit aren’t really a secret: He retired after a power struggle that left him in charge of more modest businesses. Current and former employees, asking not to be identified discussing internal business, describe a checkered record at odds with his campaign’s portrayal.

Former colleagues have been bracing for his run to not only spotlight Carlyle’s past controversies -- akin to what Mitt Romney’s presidential run did to Bain Capital -- but for it to also dredge up missteps by Youngkin and managers he oversaw.

Democrats have sought to use Youngkin’s tenure at Carlyle against him, assailing businesses practices such as its willingness to invest in China, to make the case that his campaign rhetoric doesn’t reflect his past. He has tried to minimize the scale of those dealings. Recently, McAuliffe focused on tying Youngkin to former President Donald Trump, who lost the state by 10 points in 2020.

Trump endorsed Youngkin last month in a news release: “Glenn has been an incredible success and will truly make Virginia great again.”

Carlyle’s founders, meanwhile, were having trouble finding a new leadership team to take over as they stepped back. A number of potential candidates -- such as prominent JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive Michael Cavanagh -- came and went.

Youngkin figured into the discussions: He’d grown up inside the firm, helped it expand to Europe and was uniquely steeped in Carlyle’s operations and culture. Yet the founders recognized they needed someone with strong investing chops who could ensure big returns.

They ultimately paired him with Kewsong Lee, a sharp-elbowed and decisive dealmaker who quickly became more dominant. He took control of the firm’s most prominent businesses, including private equity and credit investments. Youngkin was left with smaller lines, such as European real estate. A number of groups under him struggled, and some longtime employees who ran them left to pursue other opportunities.

During his time at the top, he helped convert Carlyle’s legal structure to a corporation -- a move designed to allow more investors, such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, in the stock.

But the infrastructure push haunted him. The fund that Carlyle raised in 2018 struggled to move large deals forward, such as the redevelopment of Terminal One at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. According to Carlyle, the fund had invested just $466 million as of last December, when a new head was brought in.

One customer, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, said it was told the fund had a negative return of 51% at the end of 2020.

That year, Youngkin confided in colleagues that he felt he had little choice but to leave as co-CEO Lee continued to strengthen his grip. When announcing his departure, he told employees that he wasn’t sure what he would do next.

By the time he stepped down Sept. 30, Carlyle’s stock had posted an 8% gain during his time at the top. Apollo had advanced 34% in the period, and Blackstone and KKR & Co. were up 63%.

This reality does not jibe with the the picture Youngkin's ads are falsely painting. In fact, it is reminiscent of Trump's false picture of his business acumen.