FIRB chairman Brian Wilson to advise The Carlyle Group

Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson will advise The Carlyle Group’s Asian buyout team.

Brian Wilson, chairman of the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has been appointed senior adviser to The Carlyle Group’s Asian buyout team.

As well as FIRB chairman, Mr Wilson is Chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney, a non-executive director of Bell Financial Group and a member of the Payments System Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Mr Wilson will advise the Carlyle team and company executives for the private equity firm’s portfolios on key trends, support investment due diligence and serve on company boards for its portfolios.

He becomes part of a group of 30 senior business executives who have been engaged as consultants to help Carlyle invest wisely and create value across a range of industries.

Mr Wilson has more than 30 years of financial markets experience.

He served as a managing director of Lazard, having co-founded the firm’s Australian operations in 2004.

Prior to joining Lazard, he was a vice-chairman of Citigroup Australia.

During his investment banking career, he advised on more than 60 public company takeovers and reconstructions, including cross-border transactions involving North American, European and Asian companies across a range of industries.

“We are thrilled to welcome such an experienced business leader as an adviser to Carlyle,” Mr XD Yang, managing director and co-head of the Carlyle Asia buyout team, said.

“Carlyle has a long history of investing in Asia and we have built a large team with deep investment and operational experience across the region and industry sectors.”

“Brian will be a great resource for our team as we continue to bring investment insights, financial resources as well as operational expertise to support the growth of the companies in the region.”

Mr Wilson said he was delighted to partner with an organisation that has such an outstanding track record of investment and value creation.

“I look forward to working closely with the team to assist as it pursues new investment opportunities across various sectors in Australasia and to create value for Carlyle’s portfolio companies.”

Carlyle has a strong track record of investing across the Asia Pacific region.

In total, it has invested more than $US17 billion of equity in 225 transactions in the Asia Pacific region and close to $US2 billion of equity in 8 transactions in Australia as of June 30, 2016.

The Carlyle Group is a global alternative asset manager with $176 billion of assets under management across 127 funds and 164 fund of funds vehicles as of June 30, 2016.