The Carlyle Group has reached a final close for its latest Asia-Pacific growth fund at a challenging time for regional fundraising, Private Equity International has learned.
The Washington DC-headquartered firm last month collected $950 million for Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II against a $1 billion target, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. Roughly half of this capital was committed by new LP relationships, the source noted.
CAPG II raised $621.2 million from 61 US investors, per a 21 April filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It launched in April 2021.
Carlyle declined to comment on fundraising.
Carlyle’s Asia growth funds target small buyout and late-stage growth capital investments across India, China, Korea and elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, according to a disclosure from the International Finance Corporation.
The latest vehicle is nearly three times the size of its 2018-vintage predecessor, according to PEI data. That fund was initially named Carlyle Asia Growth Partners V and later renamed to Carlyle Asia Partners Growth I as Carlyle’s regional growth and buyout teams were combined into one entity. It closed on $339 million against a $1 billion target.
Fund II is the largest Asia-focused private equity fund closed so far this year, according to PEI data. The next largest is Crescent Capital Partners VII, which collected A$1 billion ($667.9 million; €604.5 million) against an A$709 million target in April.
Carlyle is in market with Carlyle Asia Partners VI, its latest pan-Asia buyout fund, PEI data shows. The 2018-vintage Carlyle Asia Partners V raised $6.55 billion against a $5 billion target.
Carlyle’s latest close comes at a difficult time for fundraising in the region. Asia-Pacific-focused funds closed on $64 billion last year, the lowest annual total since 2014 and its lowest annual share of global fundraising since 2008, according to PEI data. Appetites for the region were dented by long-standing pandemic restrictions and geopolitical tensions in China, among other factors.
Growth equity fundraising also fell sharply last year. Such funds raised $96.8 billion globally last year, down 27 percent from 2021.
Growth deals accounted for 54 percent of deal value in 2022, up from 50 percent in 2021, according to Bain & Co’s Asia-Pacific Private Equity Report 2023. That said, the total value of large growth deals – including those $200 million and above – fell 45 percent; the average growth deal size fell to $88 million, the lowest level since 2015.
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