Carlyle closes fourth Asia buyout fund at $3.9b

The fund, which will make control and significant minority investments across the Asia ex-Japan region, has exceeded its original target of $3.5 billion. The vehicle launched in May 2012 and reached a first close of $1.5 billion after just under one year in the market. The fundraise took around the same amount of time as Fund III, which closed at $2.55 billion.

Carlyle is latest in a group of GPs to reach a final close on a pan-Asian buyout vehicle this year. Affinity Equity Partners announced a final close of $3.8 billion for its fourth pan-Asian fund in January after 15 months on the market, and then CVC Capital Partners hit the $3.5 billion hard cap on its fourth Asia fund in May. TPG Capital, which launched around the same time as Carlyle, closed its sixth pan-Asia fund at $3.3 billion just days after CVC.

Among Carlyle's LPs are New York State Teachers' retirement System (NYSTRS), which committed $100 million last October, and CDIB Capital International, which is understood to have put $20 million into the new vehicle having committed the same amount for Fund III.

CAP IV made its first investment in May in security services unit ADT Korea. In August, the fund invested in Ganji.com, a Chinese online and mobile-based classifieds provider. Carlyle now has $13.6 billion in assets under management in its Asia funds - including Japan - across buyout, growth, RMB and real estate strategies.

Having first established its presence in the region in 1998, Carlyle now has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. The GP had invested $14.1 billion throughout Asia Pacific as of June 2014. In China alone, it has invested $5.2 billion across about 80 transactions.

"We believe that the regional economy will continue to grow much faster than the rest of the world. Rising middle class and their demand for better products and services are key drivers of these investment opportunities," said X.D. Yang (pictured), managing director and co-head of the Carlyle Asia buyout team, said in a statement.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• Buyout
• The Carlyle Group
• CVC Capital Partners
• TPG Capital
• Fundraising
• buyout
• Asia