Carlyle closes three US CLOs as quarterly inflows reach US$16.8bn

Carlyle closed three new-issue US collateralised loan obligations during the second quarter as group-wide inflows reached US$16.8bn and available investment capital increased to US$97bn.

The CLO activity formed part of fundraising and deployment across Carlyle’s global credit, private-equity and secondaries businesses. The company invested US$14.3bn during the quarter, while total assets under management increased by 4% to US$485bn.

The figures underline the amount of capital available to large private-market managers as banks, insurers and other institutional investors increase their use of externally managed credit strategies.

Carlyle’s Global Credit business manages direct lending, asset-backed finance, opportunistic credit, infrastructure credit, aviation finance, liquid credit and insurance-related assets. At the end of March, the division had US$209.5bn of assets under management and US$166.4bn of fee-earning assets. The firm had not published a searchable second-quarter segment breakdown at the research cut-off.

The three US CLO closings expand Carlyle’s capacity to manage portfolios of broadly syndicated senior secured loans. CLOs issue several layers of debt and equity against a pool of loans, with different levels of protection and return for investors.

Group distributable earnings rose to US$472.3m, or US$1.07 a share, from US$431m, or US$0.91 a share, in the corresponding quarter of 2025. Fee-related earnings increased to US$357.7m from US$323.3m.

The improvement in distributable earnings contrasted with lower accounting profit. Net income fell to US$224.8m from US$328.1m, while reported revenue declined to US$1.12bn from US$1.57bn.

Carlyle also distributed almost US$7bn to fund investors during the quarter and US$37bn over the preceding 12 months. Returning capital has become an important test for private-market managers because investors often need realisations from existing funds before making larger commitments to new vehicles.

The company did not disclose in its summary reporting how much of the US$16.8bn of inflows or US$97bn of available capital was allocated specifically to Global Credit. Those totals should therefore be treated as firm-wide figures rather than private-credit fundraising alone.

Even with that qualification, the CLO closings and scale of the wider capital base point to continued institutional demand for credit assets and substantial capacity for new lending and structured-credit issuance.