Carlyle Group Turns Abroad After Bad Domestic Times

It's been a rough few months for David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group.

As the subprime crisis sent deal-making into a tailspin last August, Carlyle barely saved its buyout of Home Depot's contractor supply unit. When banks balked at lending, Carlyle increased the amount of cash it put in and persuaded Home Depot to cut the price 18 percent, to $8.5 billion.

In December, unions petitioned regulators to block Carlyle's $6.3 billion purchase of the nursing home chain Manor Care, accusing the firm of focusing on profits to the detriment of patients. Though their effort was unsuccessful, the unions continued to hound Mr. Rubenstein, demonstrating in January at the University of Pennsylvania, where he gave a speech at a private equity conference held at the Wharton School.

"For the next year or so, we will be in purgatory," he told the conference. "We will have to atone for our sins a little bit."

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