Ex-Goldman Sachs COO increases Carlyle pay 40% in two years

11 February 2025

2 minute read

Private equity firm Carlyle does not pay like it used to. If you work there now, you will get less money in cash, but a lot more money in stock and carried interest.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

The change is laid out in Carlyle's fourth quarter results. Spending on cash compensation and benefits at the firm was down to $876m in 2024, a level last seen in around 2020. This was 16% below the average of $1,037m that Carlyle spent on cash comp in 2022 and 2023.

All is not lost, however. While Carlyle squeezed cash pay, it poured money into equity based compensation and performance allocations, as per the chart below.

Carlyle Q4 results:

article-image-Lvth73ThRbCHvyue4jXQ

Source: Carlyle

Net, the changes mean that total compensation spending at Carlyle has risen 40% in two years. Cash may be down, but everything else is up.

Everything else includes equity pay, which came with the added bonus of Carlyle's share price nearly doubling last year. And it includes 'performance fees' or carried interest, which are still subject to preferential tax treatment for recipients.

Carlyle is led by Harvey Schwartz, the former COO of Goldman Sachs. Schwartz's arrival in 2023 coincided with a period of cost-cutting. This week, Financial News reported that Mark Dale, a London managing director and rising star who'd been there since 2014 was leaving for reasons unknown. Other recent exits include Philipp Meyer, a Munich-based MD who went to Cinven, and Friedel Drees, another Munich MD who went to ICG.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libellous (in which case it won’t.)