Becky Barrow
bin Laden - Bush - Baker - Carlucci - Levitt - Major
Mon Sep 9 05:09:30 2002
68.98.68.169

They are all connected here:
bin Laden - Bush - Baker - Carlucci - Levitt - Major

US firm wins race to buy share in MoD's inventors
By Becky Barrow


The Government was forced yesterday to defend its
decision to sell part of the Ministry of Defence's scientific
research division to an American company with close
political contacts.

Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, Dr Lewis
Moonie, the defence minister, attacked any suggestion
that the decision to grant "preferred bidder" status to the
Carlyle Group was wrong.

Answering suggestions that its intimate links with the
American government raised doubts, Dr Moonie said: "It
is very important that half-truths like that should not be
allowed to cloud what is a respectable company."

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence announced that the
Carlyle Group had beaten 40 competitors to buy a
"substantial" minority stake in Qinetiq. It will now hold
exclusive talks with Qinetiq to tie up the deal.

Qinetiq, which was formed from the Defence Evaluation
and Research Agency, part of the Ministry of Defence,
pioneered the radar technology used to map minefields in
Kosovo, among many other discoveries. It claims to be
working on technology to enable people to live on the
moon and to give new eyes to blind people. The Carlyle
Group, which was formed 15 years ago and has offices a
short distance from the White House, has built up an
advisory board that would make any headhunter weep
with envy.

Its chairman is Frank Carlucci, secretary of defence
between 1987 and 1989. The senior counsellor is James
Baker III, secretary of state from 1989-1992. The senior
adviser is Arthur Levitt, chairman of the Securities and
Exchange Commission until his departure last year.

President Bush was a director of CaterAir, an airline
catering business which was one of Carlyle's investments.
His father is on Carlyle's American advisory board.

John Major, the former prime minister, became chairman
of the European division in May 2001, having been a
member of the advisory board since 1998.

Lord Howe, the former foreign secretary, was also on the
advisory board until his term of office ended last year.

Fiona Draper, a spokesman for Prospect, the scientists'
union that represents some of Qinetiq's 9,000 staff, said:
"The fact that they are a foreign company obviously will
exacerbate my members' concerns. Given Carlyle's fairly
opaque structure, there must be concern whether undue
influence was brought to bear that may not be in Britain's
interest.

"I do understand that, in the past at least, they have had
investors from interesting areas of the world, shall we
say."

Carlyle has 21 different offices around the world, $13.5
billion (£9 billion) invested in 20 private equity funds and
500 staff.

Its investors are pension funds, banks and insurance
companies but it also attracts some very rich people. On
its books until recently was the Saudi Bin Laden Group
which had invested in one of Carlyle's funds with some
defence holdings.

After September 11, Carlyle decided this investor was not
appropriate and bought it out.

The Government was initially planning to float Qinetiq - a
name based on the words "kinetic" and "IQ" - on the
stock market. But in March, it decided against a flotation,
opting instead to find a strategic partner.

Forty companies replied to a newspaper advertisement,
12 reached the shortlist stage, and the Carlyle Group
won.

A spokesman for the Carlyle Group insisted that Qinetiq
would remain a "a British company based in the United
Kingdom". Qinetiq's headquarters are in Farnborough,
Hants, and it has about 40 other offices in Britain.

31 May 2002: Inventor's dispute could hit MoD sale

10 March 2002[Money]: Qinetiq to sell £50m site

20 January 2002[Money]: Carlyle leads bid for Qinetiq

23 December 2001[Money]: Government to abandon defence
float

16 December 2001: My brother Osama

15 May 2001[Money]: Major joins private equity firm

6 April 2001: MoD agency rebranded as QinetiQ
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/16/wbin16.xml

Carlyle Group and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe
http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/news.htm

DON'T TELL ANYBODY IN THE U.S. MEDIA ABOUT THIS!