Global private equity investment firm Carlyle Group, which has over $84.5 billion of equity capital under management, yesterday announced the closure of its fourth Asian growth capital fund at $1.04 billion.

It aid that it had earmarked around $400 million or around 40 per cent of this sum for investments in Indian companies. (See: Carlyle Group to raise $1 billion for property inverstments in China and Japan)

The Washington-based PE investor said that it had successfully closed its fourth Asian growth capital fund, Carlyle Asia Growth Partners IV (CAGP IV), a sector-agnostic capital growth fund, to invest in high-growth private companies with strong local management and leading market position in China, India, Korea and other key Asian markets.

It aid that despite a difficult fund-raising environment, the fund raised $1.04 billion in only 14 months from a broad geographical range of investors.

Due to the global economic credit crunch, private-equity firms made $204 billion of deals in 2008, a 70-per cent decline from 2007, but in November Carlyle raised $14 billion of its $15-billion fund, announced in 2007.

Out of the $1.04 billion raised, Carlyle will earmark nearly 85 per cent of the money to invest in India and China, with the Indian investment being in the region of 40 per cent.