Apparently, the very rich would prefer to have a family office than be president. Well, that’s according to one of Wall Street’s masters of the universe, David Rubenstein, the CEO of the private equity group, Carlyle Group.
Rubenstein said at a quarterly Carlyle Group’s earnings call last week, reported by Business Insider: “In the old days, everybody wanted to have their son grow up or their daughter grow up to be president of US, now everybody wants to have their son or daughter have a family office, everybody wants a family office.”
Rubenstein is in a pretty good position to know about these types of things. He sees a lot of very rich people in his line of work, and, in fact, seems to be seeing a lot more in recent years. Rubenstein said at the same call: “And so in the recent months, I’ve noticed and looking at our statistics that we are — our second biggest investor by category is high net worth.” (By HNW he means the very rich, not the plain vanilla boring millionaire usually associated with the HNW category.)
Private equity, whether through direct deals, or indirect investments, has gained sharply in popularity in recent years. Groups like Carlyle are obviously benefiting from this trend.
And Rubenstein just might have a point about the popularity of family offices, compared with that of the most powerful political position in the world. The current individuals hoping to be the 45th president of the US, some might argued, aren’t doing much to inspire a new generation of wannabe presidents.
Perhaps, like Rubenstein suggests, managing your own money is, these days, much more empowering.
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