Carlyle earmarks up to $75 mn for investment in single firm

MUMBAI: Carlyle Group, the world's second biggest buyout firm, has identified India as one of its key markets and would invest in companies across sectors, earmarking between $15-75 million for investment in each company.

Carlyle successfully closed its fourth Asian growth capital fund called Carlyle Asia Growth Partners IV (CAGP IV).

It raised $1.04 billion in 14 months from a broad geographical range of investors in the US, Europe and Asia despite a difficult fund-raising environment.

"We will invest between $15-75 million in a company. Our sweet spot is typically a stake between 20-35 per cent," Carlyle India Advisors' Managing Director M Shankar Narayanan told PTI here.

The bulk of the $1.04 billion would be invested in China, followed by India and Korea, he said.

With a sector-agnostic approach, Carlyle plans to invest in companies spanning across domestic healthcare to FMCG, media and entertainment to engineering products and services to IT and IT-enabled services firms.

It is singling out companies "that have a track-record of profitability" besides the potential to grow by 30-50 per cent, both in topline as well bottomline, Narayanan said.