Firms & Funds

Market at a glance – Carlyle closes its fourth strategic vehicle

March 6 2017

U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine fundraising ground to a halt in the past two weeks, adding only $700 million to its yearly total. That total sits at $17.2 billion, lagging this time last year by $8.3 billion, or 32.5 percent.

Carlyle Group held a final close on its fourth distressed and special-situations fund. Carlyle Strategic Partners IV beat its $2 billion goal and closed on $2.5 billion. True Wind Capital Management blew by the $400 million target for its maiden fund. True Wind raised $560 million for lower-middle-market tech companies.

Another debut fund that closed marketing was PeakEquity Partners. PeakEquity I will back enterprise-software and solutions businesses and finished with $137 million.

Following a surge, deal-making also slowed over the past two weeks. Another $2.5 billion was transacted in the past two weeks, boosting this year’s total to $29.5 billion. This year’s deal total is outpacing 2016’s total by $5.6 billion, or 23.4 percent.

GTCR led the way for all the deals with disclosed value. The Chicago firm acquired Inteliquent, a provider of telecom services, for $671.2 million.

Next up was Bain Capital, swinging a deal for Blue Nile. Bain bought out the online diamond retailer for $438.8 million.