Carlyle Group, the private equity firm that went public this month, plans to seek about $3.5 billion for its fourth buyout fund in Asia, two people familiar with the matter said.
Carlyle, which has made initial approaches to investors, has yet to start marketing the fund, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
At $3.5 billion, the buyout fund would be Carlyle’s biggest targeting Asia. It would be 37% larger than the firm’s last regional fund, completed in 2007. Private equity companies raised $57 billion for regional funds last year, more than double the amount of 2009, as they sought to invest in China, according to Asian Venture Capital Journal.
Carlyle plans an initial close on the new fund, Carlyle Asia Partners IV, in the second half of the year, a person with knowledge of the matter said this week. The private equity firm has raised $5.1 billion since 1999 focusing on buyout deals in Asia, with Carlyle Asia Partners III accumulating $2.55 billion in 2007, according to its website.
Brian Zhou, a Beijing-based spokesman at Carlyle, declined to comment.
The number of buyout deals in China more than doubled last year to a record, according to Bain & Co. The value of LBOs in the country increased to $7.5 billion from $5.9 billion in 2010, Preqin estimates.
Private equity investments in the Asia-Pacific region reached $69 billion last year, a 38% increase from 2009, according to estimates by the Asian Venture Capital Journal. KKR and TPG Capital also are raising multibillion-dollar pools targeting the region.
Fifty-three pan-Asia funds were attempting to raise a total of $22.3 billion to invest exclusively in the region as of last month, according to data compiled by Preqin, a London-based research firm.
