The Carlyle Group Inc. is an American multinational company with operations in private equity, alternative asset management and financial services.

Carlyle was founded in 1987 as a boutique investment bank by five partners with backgrounds in finance and government: William E. Conway Jr., Stephen L. Norris, David Rubenstein, Daniel A.

[12][13] In the late 1980s, Carlyle raised capital deal-by-deal to pursue leveraged buyout investments, including a failed takeover battle for Chi-Chi's.

In its early years, Carlyle also advised in transactions including, in 1991, a $500 million investment in Citigroup by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family.

[38] At the time, Carlyle, which had been founded 15 years earlier, had accumulated $13.9 billion of assets under management and had generated annualized returns for investors of 36%.

[40] As the activity of the large private equity firms increased in the mid-2000s, Carlyle kept pace with such competitors as KKR, Blackstone Group, and TPG Capital.

In 2005, Carlyle, together with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Merrill Lynch completed the $15.0 billion leveraged buyout of The Hertz Corporation, the largest car rental agency from Ford.

[44] In September 2006, Carlyle led a consortium, comprising Blackstone Group, Permira and TPG Capital, in the $17.6 billion takeover of Freescale Semiconductor.

Shortly after the deal closed in late 2006, cell phone sales at Motorola Corp., Freescale's former corporate parent and a major customer, began dropping sharply.

[52] In October 2017, the Carlyle Group announced that its founders would remain executive chairmen on the board of directors but step down as the day-to-day leaders of the firm; they named Glenn Youngkin and Kewsong Lee to succeed them, as co-CEOs, effective January 1, 2018.

[61] At the end of September 2020, Youngkin retired from the firm, stating his intention to focus on community and public service; this left Lee as the sole CEO.

[71] In February 2023, Harvey Schwartz was appointed CEO of the group, replacing Kewsong Lee, who left the position abruptly the previous summer following a power struggle with the co-founders.

[73] In September 2023, it was announced Carlyle initiated a tender offer to acquire the Tokyo-headquartered paper and ink chemicals manufacturer, Seiko PMC from its parent company DIC Corporation for $221 million.

[74] In June 2024, Carlyle announced the formation of a new Mediterranean-focused oil and gas company, led by former BP CEO Tony Hayward, after acquiring Energean's assets in Egypt, Italy, and Croatia for up to $945 million.

[75] In October 2024, Carlyle Group strengthened its partnership with Korea Investment & Securities to discover attractive global products on the one-year anniversary of its strategic alliance.

[77] In February 2025, Carlyle Group announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement with Bluebird Bio to be acquired by a fund managed by SK Capital Partners.

[80] In September 2007, Mubadala Development Company, an investment vehicle for the government of Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates, purchased a 7.5% stake for $1.35 billion.

[80][81] In February 2008, California legislators targeted Carlyle and Mubadala, proposing a bill that would have barred CalPERS from investing money "with private-equity firms that are partly owned by countries with poor records on human rights."

Following the IPO, Carlyle's three remaining founding partners, Rubenstein, D'Aniello and Conway retained the position as the company's largest shareholders.

[86] The firm is organized into three business segments: Carlyle's Corporate Private Equity division manages a series of leveraged buyout and growth capital investment funds with specific geographic or industry focuses.

Carlyle's Corporate Private Equity segment advises 23 buyout and 10 growth capital funds, with $75 billion in Assets Under Management ("AUM") as of March 31, 2018.

Founded in 1999, AlpInvest has offices in New York, Amsterdam, London, Hong Kong, Indianapolis, Singapore and Tokyo with over 100 investment professionals and over 260 employees.

[93] In March 2008, Carlyle Capital Corporation – established in August 2006[94] for the purpose of making investments in U.S. mortgage-backed securities – defaulted on about $16.6 billion of debt as the global credit crunch brought about by the subprime mortgage crisis worsened for leveraged investors.

"[98] On March 16, 2008, Carlyle Capital announced that its Class A Shareholders had voted unanimously in favor of the Corporation filing a petition under Part XVI, Sec.

[103] Moore focused on Carlyle's connections with George H. W. Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker, both of whom had at times served as advisers to the firm.

The movie quotes author Dan Briody, who claimed that the Carlyle Group "gained" from the September 11 attacks because it owned military contractor United Defense.