Carlyle Group Buys into NGP Energy Capital Management

(Reuters) – Asset manager The Carlyle Group acquired a 47.5 percent stake in energy investor NGP Energy Capital Management for $424 million to boost its natural resources investments.

Carlyle will buy the 40 percent stake owned by Barclays Natural Resource Investments, and rest from NGP’s management.

Carlyle raised $1.38 billion, almost double its initial target, in November for an energy buyout fund, its first such fund following the end of its collaboration with Riverstone Holdings LLC.

The company and New York-based Riverstone launched six funds together since 2000, but the two private equity firms decided to go it alone in 2011.

Irving, Texas-based NGP Energy, which has about $12 billion in assets under management, invests in a range of energy and natural resource assets.

Carlyle, which manages assets totaling $157.4 billion, also agreed to pay additional consideration during 2015 to 2018, subject to NGP achieving certain goals. The company also has the right to purchase an additional 7.5 percent stake in NGP Energy.

The deal, which will be funded with cash and Carlyle Holdings partnership units, closed on Thursday.

Carlyle’s shares were flat at $26.17 in early trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

(Reporting by Ashutosh Pandey in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein. Photo by Fred Prouser, Reuters