According to a report in Reuters, private equity firm Carlyle Group is hoping to launch its IPO at a valuation of $7.5 billion to $8 billion.
That’s certainly a comedown from the frenzy of 2007, when Blackstone (NYSE:BX) went public. Blackstone raised a cool $7 billion at a valuation of $29 billion.
Since then, however, the private equity industry has had to deal with the financial crisis as well as a general slowdown in IPOs and M&A activity. The result is that growth has been slow.
Carlyle has tried to find alternative sources of income, such as its hedge funds. All in all, this has been a good move.
Carlyle is the No. 2 player in its space, with assets under management of $147 billion. In 2011 the company saw a 1.7% increase in revenues, to $2.85 billion, while net income fell by 11%, to $1.36 billion.
Other private equity firms that have gone public over the past couple years include KKR (NYSE:KKR) and Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO).
Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog IPO Playbook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He also is the author of “The Complete M&A Handbook”, “All About Short Selling” and “All About Commodities.” Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli or reach him via email. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.
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