David Rubenstein, the founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, has called on buy-out firms to act quickly to stave off government-enforced regulation.

Speaking at the SuperReturns conference in Munich, Rubenstein said that once the US government had finished turning the spotlight on corporate collapses, such as Tyco and Enron, it would look to other areas where investors had made heavy losses. He pledged his support for the creation of a representative body in the US for buy-out firms modelled on the European Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (EVCA).