Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group has closed its latest fund Carlyle Asia Partners III (CAP III) at $2.55 billion. The corpus is over 40% higher than the previous fund, Carlyle Asia Partners II. With this, the total committed capital of Carlyle Asia Partners has crossed $5-billion mark across three funds, it said in a statement.
CAP III is the third ex-Japan Asia Pacific private equity fund advised by the Carlyle Asia Partners team. It got commitments from large institutional investors from around the world including the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia, the statement added. The firm launched its Asian private equity operation in 1999, and has made 21 investments so far in the region.
Carlyle believes the fund will help it to focus and invest more in Asia as the region bounces back strongly from the global economic crises. “We believe that 2010 is shaping up to be a very good year to make investments in Asia, and see strong investment opportunities across the entire region. We look forward to investing with this significant pool of capital resources at this attractive time,” X D Yang, MD and co-head of Carlyle Asia Partners, said, in the statement.
Carlyle invests in local companies having professionals with deep investment and operating expertise. It has a team of 40 investment professionals, and has seven offices in Asia in Mumbai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney.
Carlyle manages a total of 11 funds with more than $10 billion of assets under management in Asia Pacific, including Japan. It has 65 individual funds globally in five investment disciplines: buyout, distressed and corporate opportunities, leveraged finance, growth capital and real estate.
Earlier in June 2009, Carlyle closed its fourth Asian growth capital fund, Carlyle Asia Growth Partners IV (CAGP IV), at $1.04 billion, out of which around 80% will be invested in high growth private companies in India and China.
Last month, Carlyle made investments in Chennai-based health insurer Star Health and Allied Insurance Co Ltd through its growth fund, jointly with ICICI Venture and Sequoia Capital India.
