The Carlyle Group

A $3B PE fund's carry: splitting $600M among ~10 partners

Begelman lays out PE economics: a $3B real estate fund returning 2x over 5 years produces $3B profit; the firm keeps 20% carry = $600M, split among the partners (with Carlyle's holdco taking roughly half).

“we had a $3 billion real estate fund that I was in. There's like 10 people in the acquisitions group, but a bunch of people in asset management. $3 billion, if we return 2 times, which is like kind of the bare minimum for success over 5 years, then we keep 20% of the upside. So we basically, we turn $3 billion into $6 billion. That's $3 billion of profit. So 20% of that is $600 million. We split $600 million.”