Poll Results: Roughly Half Think Carlyle Will Go Public Next Year

It turns out that the Carlyle Group may not be playing hard to get.

Earlier this week, Daniel D’Aniello, one of Carlyle’s three co-founders, said that the global buyout shop may choose to stay private because the markets aren’t friendly. D’Aniello made the comments at the Quebec City Conference in Canada. Now I wasn’t there, but I’m told that D’Aniello, in answer to a follow-up question, said that Carlyle “might stay private for another 25 years.”

Some are claiming that the Carlyle co-founder, when he said the PE firm may stay private, was joking. D’Aniello laughed, the audience laughed. A merry time was had by all.

If D’Aniello was kidding, does this mean anything for my poll? No. Volatility has pretty much shut the IPO market and Carlyle’s offering doesn’t look like it’s coming anytime soon.

Now to the results. I asked you when Carlyle would go public. Surprisingly, 31% of voters think Carlyle will end of staying private. But nearly half think the global buyout shop will launch their IPO sometime next year: 28.2% think Carlyle will go public during the first half while another 22.5% think the offering will come during the second half of 2012.

Another 11.3% of voters believe the IPO won’t come until 2013. There’s also a small group of optimists out there; about 7% of readers think Carlyle will go public this year. Maybe they know something I don’t.

A Carlyle official declined comment.