Comcast names Carlyle Group's Michael Cavanagh as CFO

By Greg Roumeliotis(Reuters) - Comcast Corp on Monday named Carlyle Group LP Co-President Michael Cavanagh as chief financial officer, bringing on a prominent dealmaker after its failed attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable Inc .The appointment, which takes effect in early summer, is a blow to Carlyle. The private equity firm had hired Cavanagh just last year from JPMorgan Chase & Co , where he was seen a potential successor to Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon.Cavanagh, 49, replaces Michael Angelakis, who Comcast said in March would head its investment arm scheduled to start operations in 2015 or early 2016 with up to $4.1 billion to invest in growth-oriented companies.Glenn Youngkin, Cavanagh's fellow co-president and co-chief operating officer at Carlyle, will assume sole responsibility of these roles. Carlyle has no immediate plans to replace Cavanagh, according to a person briefed on the matter and not authorized to discuss it publicly.Cavanagh is the second top executive to leave Carlyle in as many years. Last year, CFO Adena Friedman returned to NASDAQ OMX Group Inc after three years at Carlyle to become the market exchange operator's president."We see Cavanagh's departure highlighting the cultural risk at Carlyle," JPMorgan equity analysts wrote in a note. "Our expectation was that Cavanagh would bring big-company management to Carlyle, which is growing into a big company."Carlyle is run by its founders, David Rubenstein, William Conway and Daniel D'Aniello.Before joining Carlyle, Cavanagh was co-head of JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank. He also had been the bank's CFO for six years.Cavanagh will receive a base salary of $1.8 million for 2015 plus a cash bonus of up to four times that amount, Comcast said in a regulatory filing. He is also entitled to an additional incentive package of up to $22.5 million, the filing said.Shares of Comcast were down 0.5 percent at $58.11 in afternoon trading, while Carlyle rose 0.3 percent to $30.31.(Additional reporting by Sai Sachin R in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Lisa Von Ahn)Join the conversation about this story
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