Three weeks after taking the reins of Carlyle Group, Harvey Schwartz was holding court docket on the unfolding banking turmoil throughout an look in entrance of the personal fairness agency’s prime dealmakers.

It was 4 days after Silicon Valley Financial institution had collapsed and the previous Goldman Sachs president predicted the monetary system was nowhere close to a 2008-style disaster, based on individuals who attended the assembly. However he additionally warned his viewers in opposition to complacency, urging them to be looking out for a sudden evaporation of confidence.

For Schwartz, a Goldman veteran who led the financial institution’s buying and selling division via the good monetary disaster, it was an opportunity to indicate Carlyle’s prime brass how his Wall Avenue expertise was related to an altogether completely different problem: reviving a storied personal fairness group with $400bn in property that has been twisting within the wind because the abrupt and acrimonious exit of his predecessor Kewsong Lee in August final 12 months.

As Carlyle prepares to unveil its quarterly earnings on Thursday, its first outcomes since Schwartz took over, insiders say the alternate of concepts by way of lengthy speaking and studying classes has grow to be the hallmark of his management type thus far.

Analysts aren’t anticipating Schwartz to announce a significant restructuring this week or to unveil any large concepts on the way to restore Carlyle to its former glory. Blackstone, Carlyle’s important rival in company buyouts when it went public in 2012, has since seen its market worth eclipse $100bn. That makes it price about 10 instances as a lot as an organization as soon as seen as its equal.

“[We] count on early ideas from new CEO Harvey Schwartz however no substantive commentary right now,” mentioned Michael Brown, an analyst who covers Carlyle at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Schwartz has spent his first two-and-a-half months on the agency presenting himself as a eager listener, a picture that runs considerably counter to the repute as a company bruiser he earned whereas at Goldman.

Along with internet hosting roughly a dozen city halls, he has led forensic evaluations of every of Carlyle’s companies which have stretched on for 2 hours or extra, throughout which he has peppered leaders with questions on technique and efficiency.

“His message has very a lot been ‘assist me assist you to’,” mentioned one particular person concerned within the conferences. Schwartz has additionally promised to not second guess the agency’s dealmakers on investments. A number of insiders mentioned the phrase “I’m not an investor” had grow to be a standard chorus. He was not on the funding committee of Carlyle’s flagship buyout funds, sources mentioned.

But few suppose the listening classes will final for for much longer, with many insiders believing Schwartz is gathering the knowledge he wants earlier than embarking on a big restructuring of the group.

The enterprise evaluations “are being obtained as interviewing in your job”, mentioned one particular person briefed on the conferences. “He’s direct and it’s candid . . . He’s asking lots of questions. However he’s not patronising everybody and being derogatory,” mentioned one other.

A number of folks accustomed to Carlyle mentioned they anticipated Schwartz to make dramatic modifications that may combine models that had lengthy been run like unbiased fiefdoms, and to call a core management group answerable for your entire agency.

Schwartz should additionally determine which companies, from credit score to sustainable investments, might be expanded in opposition to a more difficult monetary backdrop and which of them ought to be jettisoned.

He can even have to stop the agency from bleeding expertise, notably dealmakers near Lee and Peter Clare, one other lately departed government.

Externally, Schwartz has been attempting to reassure the agency’s largest traders, together with pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

In the meantime, Carlyle remains to be struggling to seek out the money it must do new offers. Its newest buyout fund has raised simply $14bn versus an preliminary goal of $22bn set in 2021.

Some traders in its funds, referred to as restricted companions, mentioned they have been changing into annoyed by how lengthy the fundraising had dragged on and instructed that Carlyle ought to admit defeat by closing the fund early. “Write it off as a foul job and get on with investing it,” mentioned one.

Not that spending the cash shall be notably simple both. “Within the investing atmosphere broadly, I believe this is likely one of the most complicated instances we’ve had,” Schwartz mentioned on the Milken convention in Beverly Hills this week.

“Most of the developments that we lived with are slowing if not reversing . . . I believe that units up an extremely attention-grabbing backdrop, each economically, globally and by way of the chance set.”