Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and a detailed earnings presentation, which is available on our Investor Relations website. We have provided reconciliation of these measures to GAAP in our earnings release to the extent reasonably available. In order to ensure participation by all those on the call today, please limit yourself to one question and return to the queue for any additional follow-ups. FRE margin for the first half was also a record 48%, and we hit record AUM of $465 billion.
We also brought in $51 billion of organic inflows over the past 12 months. Equities are near record highs and credit spreads are also near record-tight levels. As we all know, confidence is the greatest market elixir, and with this increase in confidence, we're seeing continued demand for private capital. Across the firm, we deployed $26 billion in the first half of 2025.
I would also like to highlight how much capital we're returning to investors. While the corporate private equity market broadly has faced criticism for low levels of capital return to investors, we've defied that trend. real estate fund raised across the industry in the past 18 months, a real reflection of the performance excellence of our team and the power of our global brand. In asset-backed finance, a key area of growth for Carlyle, we see lots of momentum.
| Metric | Period | Current guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Full-year FRE growth | full year 2025 | approximately 10%, with potential upside if markets improve |
| Full-year inflows | full year 2025 | approximately $50 billion |
| GPE management fee rate of decline | 2025 | expected to be meaningfully below 7%, potentially inflecting to growth in 2026 |
| CPEP wealth product launch | second half of 2025 | coming online in the second half of the year |
| Metric | YoY | Note |
|---|---|---|
| FRE (quarter) | +18% | record $323 million driven by broad-based momentum across the platform |
| Carlyle AlpInvest FRE | nearly doubled / up more than 80% year-to-date | 43% increase in management fees and exceptional organic growth in secondaries and co-investment |
| Global Credit FRE | +37% | strong capital markets activity, increased fee-related performance revenue and 11% growth in management fees |
| Capital markets fees (year-to-date) | more than double | $126 million year-to-date as the strategic initiative scaled |
| Firm-wide realized proceeds | +40% | improving exit environment; returned almost $15 billion over 12 months, three times the industry average |
| Deployment (first half) | +50% | $26 billion deployed as the firm invested with conviction |
| Asset-backed finance AUM | +40% | continued rapid scaling including the Citigroup fintech specialty lending collaboration |
| Evergreen perpetual strategy AUM | +40% | $2.2 billion raised in the quarter; CAPM assets up nearly sixfold over the year |
| U.S. buyout fund performance (CP7 and CP8) | +17% to +20% | 3%-4% appreciation in the quarter across the two most recent U.S. buyout funds |
| Topic | Previous mention | Current period | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Returning capital to investors | PE industry broadly criticized for low capital return | Carlyle defied the trend, returning almost $15 billion over 12 months at three times the industry average | — |
| Carlyle AlpInvest / secondaries growth pattern | historically step-function growth with flat periods between fund raises | evolving to consistent growth driven by CAPM, the UBS partnership and larger successive funds, though not expected to sustain 45% annually | — |
| Global wealth strategy | no systematic wealth strategy when Harvey Schwartz arrived | three flagship funds (CTAC, AlpInvest Solutions, CPEP in H2) plus the exclusive UBS partnership, with a potential retirement executive order as a tailwind | — |
| Asset-backed finance and insurance convergence | began on the back of the Fortitude Re partnership | six origination platform partnerships, ABF becoming mainstream across sovereigns, institutions and pensions, plus the Citigroup fintech collaboration | — |
| Leadership appointments | prior structure | John Redett, Mark Jenkins and Jeff Nettleman named Co-Presidents, and Justin Plouffe appointed new CFO effective January | — |
| Capital markets business quality | no strategy around capital markets fees when Harvey Schwartz arrived | high-quality non-balance-sheet fees focused only on Carlyle deals, with organic upside as more funds come online | — |