Carlyle’s entry into the economic-data fray is notable for another reason. Private-equity portfolios were once too disconnected from the broader economy to offer a read-through; common stock in highly leveraged companies can only say so much about the economy as a whole, which depends more on credit than stock prices, no matter what headlines you read.
But private capital’s growth into new sectors and credit give a wider window that’s now worth peeking through.
“The size of the portfolio, that’s number one,” Carlyle’s chief economist, Jason Thomas, tells me. “And second, when you have control positions or significant influence in companies, you get access to a lot more information — order books, backlogs, prices paid, prices received, headcount.”
That’s data that public-company shareholders, to say nothing of bondholders, could only dream of. It’s also…
