05/08/03: (The Times) George Bush Sr, the former US President, has been advising Carlyle Group since the mid-1990s. It has never been revealed how much he earns for his advice, although Mr Bush is reported to pocket between $80,000 and $100,000 (£62,000) every time he makes a speech for Carlyle. He is said to be paid with stock in the companies in which the private equity firm has invested. Mr Bush, who was defeated by Bill Cinton in 1992, built his fortune by forming the Bush-Overby oil company in 1950 with partner John Overby in Midland, Texas. Four years later he co-founded and became president of the Zapata Offshore Company. Even compared with the formidable list of former politicians who advise Carlyle, Mr Bush has a distinguished contacts book. He is widely credited with paving the way for $1 billion worth of investment made by Carlyle in Korean firms in 1999.

George W Bush, Mr Bush’s son, also worked with Carlyle Group in the early 1990s when he joined the board of Caterair, an airline catering company that had recently been acquired by Carlyle.

James A. Baker III

James Baker has served as a senior counsellor at Carlyle since 1993, and brings a wealth of political contacts after working in the US Government under three Presidents. Shortly before joining Carlyle, Mr Baker was US Secretary of State under George Bush Sr, a position he held for three years from 1989. Mr Baker also served as the Secretary to the Treasury between 1985 and 1988 in the Reagan Administration. Before that he was President Reagan’s White House chief of staff from 1981 to 1985.

Mr Baker, a graduate of Princeton University, is also a partner in Baker Botts, a global law firm headquartered in Texas, with more than 600 lawyers. The firm represented one of the defendants, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi Defence Minister, in the September 11 victims lawsuit. Mr Baker serves on the boards of both Rice and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 and has won a number of other awards including Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award and The American Institute for Public Service’s Jefferson Award.

Frank Carlucci

Frank Carlucci joined Carlyle in 1989, and acted as its chairman from 1993 to 2002. He is now Carlyle’s chairman emeritus, which sees him providing advice to the company’s management and employees. A good friend of Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, and the Defence Secretary himself between 1987 and 1989, Mr Carlucci has provided an invaluable connection between Carlyle and the defence industry.

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Business School, he is also chairman of Nortel Networks and chairman of the board of directors of Neurogen Corporation, the biotechnology company.

He also sits on the boards of United Defense, Texas Biotechnology Corporation and Pharmacia Corporation. Before serving as the US Defence Secretary, Mr Carlucci was chairman and chief executive of Sears World Trade, a business he joined in 1983.

Before that he held government service positions including Deputy Secretary of  Defence (1980-82), Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (1978-80) and Ambassador to Portugal (1975-78).

John Major

John Major has been busy since he resigned from the Conservative party after Labour’s victory in 1997. His seven years as Prime Minister left him with top-level contacts that firms have been keen to exploit.

In his most high-profile position since leaving office, Mr Major earned more than £100,000 a year for three years as a non-executive director at Mayflower, the bus and automotive engineering group. He stepped down last month because of “international comitments”, weeks after the company was forced to restate profits for 2001.

He joined Carlyle’s advisory board in 1998 and in 2001 became its European chairman, a position in which he lobbies businessmen and makes speeches on behalf of the buyout giant.

Mr Major is chairman of the European advisory council of the Emerson Electric Company, the US electronics maker, chairman of the council of the Ditchley Foundation and on the international advisory boards of the Peres Center for Peace in Israel, the InterAction Council in Tokyo and the Baker Institute in Houston. He is president of Surrey County Cricket Club.

Arthur Levitt

Arthur Levitt joined Carlyle Group as a senior adviser in May 2001. He also sits on the boards of Bloomberg, the financial information firm, Neuberger Berman, the US money manager, and CCBN, which helps public companies use the internet to communicate with investors. He also serves as an advisory board member of M&T Bank Corporation.

Before joining Carlyle Mr Levitt was the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, serving under President Clinton for nine years until 2001, the longest time that office has ever been held and putting him in touch with an enviable list of powerful individuals. Before becoming SEC chairman, Mr Levitt owned Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Washington’s Capitol Hill. Mr Levitt worked as chairman of the New York City Economic Development Corporation between 1989 and 1993 and was chairman of the American Stock Exchange from 1978 to 1989. He also serves as an advisory board member of M&T Bank Corporation.

He is the author of the best-selling book, Take on the Street: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don’t Want You to Know.