The co-founder of the Carlyle Group, the giant District private-equity firm that invests tens of billions of dollars on behalf of pension funds and other investors, said over the weekend that he expects most of the major firms in his industry to become public companies in the next few years.
"These guys who built these private-equity firms: You can say many things about them, but one thing you can't say is they're stupid, or they are not an alpha male," said David M. Rubenstein, Carlyle's managing director. "These guys are going to be fairly forthright about getting what they think they earned for building these firms."