Carlyle Group’s Top Lawyer Gets Nearly $9 Million Pay Package

The Carlyle Group Inc.’s longtime global general counsel Jeffrey Ferguson earned more than $8.7 million last year, according to a securities filing.

Ferguson received $500,000 in base salary, a cash bonus of nearly $1.6 million, and more than $6.4 million in stock awards, Carlyle said in proxy statement filed Wednesday. Ferguson, 58, has worked for Carlyle since 1999. He previously spent time in private practice at Latham & Watkins and Vinson & Elkins.

Carlyle’s filing also detailed a $187 million pay package for Harvey Schwartz, the chief executive officer for the investment giant who joined last year from the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Schwartz been busy trying to heal internal rifts that emerged amid the resignation of his predecessor, Kewsong Lee, according to a report last month by Bloomberg News.

The company isn’t planning additional leadership changes, said a Carlyle spokesperson, adding that Ferguson will remain its general counsel. Securities filings show that Ferguson sold off almost $1.1 million in Carlyle stock last year. He still owns company shares valued at $61.4 million, per Bloomberg data.

The last time Carlyle included Ferguson among its highest-paid executives in a proxy filing was during fiscal 2020, when his total compensation was listed at more than $4.1 million. Carlyle converted that year from a publicly traded Delaware limited partnership to a Delaware corporation.

Ferguson, a managing director at Carlyle, oversees its legal and compliance functions. He’s based out of Carlyle’s Washington headquarters and serves as a member of the company’s leadership, operating, and risk committees.

Within the past year, Ferguson had a key role in addressing “legal and regulatory considerations” related to Carlyle’s global investment advisory business and “focused on risk management and the continuing enhancement” of its compliance function, according to the company’s most recent proxy. Ferguson also managed Carlyle’s global litigation strategy and insurance program.

Ferguson leads an in-house legal team at Carlyle that last year saw a handful of other members be elevated to managing partner, according to the company.

Carlyle’s outside counsel roster has often included Ferguson’s former law firm Latham, which advised the company on its $4.2 billion buy of US defense contractor ManTech International Corp. in 2022 and formation of a $4.1 billion fund in 2021. Other firms doing work for Carlyle over the years include Williams & Connolly and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Washington-based Miller & Chevalier received $240,000 from Carlyle in 2023 for lobbying on tax legislation and the Inflation Reduction Act, according to public records.

Carlyle’s most recent proxy filing states that it had $426 billion in assets under management as of Dec. 31, 2023.