David Rubenstein, Carlyle Group's co-founder and managing director, who is also a lawyer and served as an aide in the Carter administration, got his hands on a little piece of history Tuesday night — a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta, England's "great charter" of political and civil liberties, for $21.3 million, according to press reports Wednesday.
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Rubenstein bought the piece during a Sotheby's auction in New York from the Perot Foundation, which was founded by Texas billionaire Ross Perot, and plans to lend the item to Washington's National Archives, where it had been displayed on loan until recently. Rubenstein nearly missed out on the bidding, Bloomberg said, arriving just minutes before it began. One of just 17 13th-century versions still around today, the item had been expected to fetch between $20 million and $30 million. Perot bought it in 1983, reportedly paying nearly $1.5 million. —
Carolyn Murphy
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