Carlyle Group, the private equity firm planning to go public next year, returned $15 billion to its limited partners during the first three quarters of 2011, the most the firm has ever distributed over a nine-month period, according to an investor.
The amount includes equity plus gains on the capital, said the investor, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Carlyle deployed $8.2 billion of capital in the first three quarters, the investor said.
Carlyle's distribution tops the $5.6 billion rival KKR & Co. returned to investors in the same period.
Carlyle has exited investments including Insight Communications, which it agreed to sell to Time Warner Cable in August for $3 billion, and Kinder Morgan, which raised $2.9 billion in an IPO in February.
Carlyle, which oversaw $148 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, is planning to go public next year in what may be the biggest IPO by a private equity manager since Blackstone Group raised $4.75 billion in 2007.
