The three founders of Carlyle shared a $413m pay-out last year focusing more attention on the extraordinary wealth earned by top private equity industry executives at a sensitive time in the US presidential election race.
Private equity already faces scrutiny for the way it has enabled executives, including Mitt Romney, frontrunner for the Republican nomination and former chief executive of Bain Capital, to build fortunes helped by a highly favourable tax perk.
The disclosure that David Rubenstein, Bill Conway and Daniel D’Aniello each received $138m in pay last year was contained in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of Carlyle’s planned initial public offering on Nasdaq in New York.