Share count
371Mpeak FY2025
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CG, Carlyle Group
Capital Markets & Asset Management financial
Carlyle is one of the world's largest global investment firms that deploys private capital across three business segments: Global Private Equity, Global Credit, and Carlyle AlpInvest .
Operational and strategic highlights for our firm and our three global business segments for 2025 include: Assets under management grew 8% to $477 billion as of December 31, 2025 from $441 billion as of December 31, 2024 .
We deployed $54.5 billion across our platform during 2025 and realized proceeds of $34.1 billion for our carry fund investors.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$4.8B
−11.9% YoY · 10% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $4.1B 5-yr avg $5.3B
Net margin 13.5% 5-yr avg 15.3%
Revenue $254M −73.9% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income ($142M) yr-ago $159M
Net margin −55.9% yr-ago 16.3%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Operating margin has held high for a asset manager (median 24% across the record). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 13%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Americas is 69% of revenue, so this is largely a single-region business.
Revenue by geography, FY2025
- Americas69%$3.3B
- EMEA30%$1.5B
- Asia Pacific1%$47M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $2.3B | $3.7B | $2.4B | $3.4B | $2.9B | $8.8B | $4.4B | $3.0B | $5.4B | $4.8B | $4.1B | RevenueRevenue |
| 1.4% | 28.4% | 14.7% | 37.2% | 20.5% | 45.8% | 36.4% | −20.5% | 25.2% | 21.8% | 18.8% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 0.3% | 6.6% | 4.8% | 11.3% | 11.9% | 33.9% | 27.6% | −20.5% | 18.8% | 16.9% | 13.5% | Net marginNet mgn |
| $6M | $244M | $117M | $381M | $348M | $3.0B | $1.2B | ($608M) | $1.0B | $809M | $547M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | 34% | 21% | 11% | 36% | 25% | 19% | — | 23% | 21% | 23% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| ($326M) | ($41M) | ($375M) | $331M | ($230M) | $1.7B | ($420M) | $138M | ($837M) | ($3.4B) | ($4.3B) | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| — | — | — | 13% | 12% | 52% | 18% | -11% | 16% | 11% | 7% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | — | 8% | −0% | 46% | 11% | −19% | 8% | 4% | 1% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $10.0B | $12.3B | $12.9B | $13.8B | $15.6B | $21.3B | $21.4B | $21.2B | $23.1B | $29.1B | $29.8B | Total assetsAssets |
| $671M | $1.0B | $630M | $793M | $988M | $2.5B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.3B | $2.0B | $1.7B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | — | — | $3.0B | $2.9B | $5.7B | $6.8B | $5.8B | $6.3B | $7.1B | $7.4B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 309M | 300M | 340M | 368M | 358M | 363M | 366M | 361M | 368M | 371M | 359M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $7.37 | $12.24 | $7.14 | $9.18 | $8.19 | $24.22 | $12.14 | $8.20 | $14.74 | $12.89 | $11.31 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.02 | $0.81 | $0.34 | $1.04 | $0.97 | $8.20 | $3.35 | $-1.68 | $2.77 | $2.18 | $1.52 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-1.06 | $-0.14 | $-1.10 | $0.90 | $-0.64 | $4.83 | $-1.15 | $0.38 | $-2.27 | $-9.10 | $-11.91 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $0.46 | $0.39 | $0.38 | $0.42 | $0.98 | $0.98 | $1.21 | $1.38 | $1.37 | $1.36 | $1.41 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| — | — | — | $8.07 | $8.18 | $15.74 | $18.65 | $16.01 | $17.25 | $19.03 | $20.53 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before 2017 are restated ×1/3 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Share counts before 2020 are restated ×3 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +6.4%/yr | +9.5%/yr |
| EPS | +67.7%/yr | +17.5%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +12.9%/yr | +6.8%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +14.0%/yr | +9.4%/yr |
| Book value / share | +15.4%/yr (6-yr) | +18.4%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.
Revenue
$4.8Blow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin 21.8%Solid fee marginOperating income $1.0B ÷ revenue $4.8BIndustry peers: median 21%
What this means
The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 16.9%WideNet income $809M ÷ revenue $4.8B
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Return on equity 11%SolidNet income $809M ÷ equity $7.1BIndustry peers: median 25%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Moderate contestabilityAI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Use of artificial intelligence technology by us could lead to the exposure of our data or other adverse effects and increase competitive, operational, legal, and regulatory risks in ways that we cannot predict.”
The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
Due in the next 12 months$75Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$555Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$470Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$144M
Lease obligations (present value)$470M
Total fixed claims on the business$615M
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $615M, of which the leases are 77%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $42.3M | $123.1M | $1.7B |
| 2022 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $500k | $500k | ($420M) |
| 2022 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $40.8M | −$61.7M | ($420M) |
| 2023 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $187.0M | $236.4M | $138M |
| 2023 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $500k | $500k | $138M |
| 2024 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $29.6M | $122.3M | ($837M) |
| 2025 | Harvey M. Schwartz | $7.1M | $76.1M | ($3.4B) |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership25.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio29:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$375M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 8% of revenue, equal to 36% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Stock compensation as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Op. margin | Net margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TROWT. Rowe Price Group Inc. | $7.3B | 41.5% | 30.2% | 25% |
| IVZInvesco | $6.4B | 18.4% | 10.3% | 4% |
| ARESAres Management | $5.6B | 13.1% | 9.0% | 13% |
| CGCarlyle Group | $4.8B | 23.5% | 11.6% | 13% |
| BAMBrookfield Asset Mgmt | $3.9B | 50.3% | 62.3% | 65% |
| EVREvercore | $3.9B | 21.1% | 15.0% | 29% |
| LAZLazard | $3.2B | 18.5% | 11.6% | 44% |
| JHGJanus Henderson Group plc | $3.1B | 25.0% | 18.8% | 10% |
| Group median | — | 22.3% | 13.3% | 19% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFCarlyle Group is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
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The assumptions
Revenue, delivered2%/yr’20→’25
Enter a price to run it.
Owner earnings it must reach—
Margin the price demands—
Owner-earnings margin today−105%
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Carlyle Group (CG), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CG, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← CFR its page in the Manual CGABL →
Industry order: ← CD the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter CGABL →