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The Carlyle Group Inc. 4.625% Subordinated Notes due 2061 (CGABL)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 29, 2014

$17.26

-0.63%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to The Carlyle Group Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Harris, Head of Investor Relations. Please begin.

Daniel F. Harris

Analyst

Thank you, Latoya. Good morning, and welcome to Carlyle's Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Call. With me on the call today are our Co-Chief Executive Officers, Bill Conway and David Rubenstein; and our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Curt Buser. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and detailed earnings presentation with our third quarter results, a copy of which is available on the Investor Relations portion of our website. Following our remarks, we will hold a question-and-answer session for analysts and institutional investors. [Operator Instructions] Contact Investor Relations following this call with any additional questions you may have. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website. We will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. These measures should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. We have provided reconciliations of these measures to GAAP in our earnings release. Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance, and undue reliance should not be placed on them. These statements are based on current management expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Carlyle assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at this time. With that, let me turn it over to our co-Chief Executive Officer, David Rubenstein.

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · UBS

Thank you, Dan. Carlyle's third quarter performance was solid despite increased volatility in many global markets. Our results were anchored by strong fundraising and by carry fund returns as well as by continued growth in our portfolio. Carlyle has continued to perform very well on a year-to-date basis. Let me provide some specifics. Year-to-date pretax distributable earnings of $666 million are 52% higher than last year, and net realized performance fees have increased 47% over the prior year period. Fee-related earnings of $179 million year-to-date are 58% higher than last year. Carlyle's carry funds are performing very well, appreciating 14% through the third quarter of 2014 compared to the MSCI World Index up 1%. We have raised $19.4 billion in new capital this year, 7% more than we did in the first 3 quarters of last year. We have deployed $8.2 billion into new and follow-on investments across our entire platform, the same amount we deployed in all of 2013. And realized proceeds of $14.1 billion year-to-date are 28% higher than last year. Our carry fund portfolio is in a very good position to achieve exits and to generate attractive distributable earnings. Depending on short-term market conditions and regulatory reviews, exits could accelerate above our expectations or they could be delayed a bit. We obviously cannot control the exact timing of every exit. What we can do and what we are doing, however, is to continue investing in strong companies and in quality assets across our global platform and to build long-term value for our investors. And importantly, through volatile and nonvolatile markets over 27 years, our carry fund returns have consistently outperformed relevant benchmarks. Of great importance, as Bill will talk about a bit later, is that volatility creates opportunities, which sometimes may be hard to see at first…

William E. Conway

Analyst · KBW

Thank you, David. I want to begin by addressing 3 questions which we frequently receive from investors. First, what is the impact of the recent volatility on our business? Second, with valuation so high, how will the investments we make today perform? And third, is Carlyle at the peak of the harvesting cycle? Starting with the recent volatility of interest rates and the global equity markets. With regard to interest rates, investors, including Carlyle, have been preoccupied over the last couple of years with the impending rise in interest rates. Instead, recent market turbulence has brought interest rates back near all-time lows. Our general view, despite the volatility of the past month, is that interest rates will rise gradually over the next few years as the global economy, led primarily by the United States, continues its slow but steady growth. While interest rates remain low, we continue to take advantage. For example, in July, Carlyle's portfolio company, The Nielsen Company, issued $800 million in senior notes at a 5% yield and refinanced an equal amount of 7.75% senior notes, resulting in an interest savings of $22 million per year. In addition, we took advantage of access to cheap credit to complete over $700 million in dividend recaps from the third quarter in companies such as PPD in the United States; Emeos [ph], Twin Set and Marle in Europe; 7 Days Group in China; and Tsubaki Nakashima in Japan. In the equity markets, our opinion is that the recent market turbulence probably reflects a combination of the market recognition of the enormous gains over the past few years and an emotional reaction to a confluence of recent events rather than a change in the underlying fundamentals of the global economy. Data from our portfolio companies continues to indicate that the growth…

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · JP Morgan

Thank you, Bill. Distributable earnings this quarter were comprised of $62 million of fee-related earnings, $99 million of realized net performance fees and a $3 million realized investment loss. On a year-to-date basis, pretax distributable earnings of $666 million are up over 50% compared to last year at this point in time. Third quarter fee-related earnings were 40% higher than the third quarter of 2013. And as noted earlier, year-to-date fee-related earnings of $179 million are up a solid 58% from the first 3 quarters of last year. Looking at revenues. Carlyle benefited from $25 million in catch-up management fees during the third quarter, driven by new capital committed primarily to our fourth Asia buyout fund, fourth European buyout fund and international energy fund. This is in line with the catch-up management fees we earned in the second quarter and more than the $8 million per quarter average during 2013. Carlyle again generated a higher-than-trend transaction fees of $18 million in the quarter, largely owing to the closing of certain large buyout transactions, but below the $30 million earned from such fees in the second quarter. Shifting to expenses. Cash-based compensation expense, excluding performance-based compensation, was $185 million, $7 million higher than the second quarter. The quarterly increase reflects higher compensation expense corresponding to an outperformance in fee revenue growth. Equity compensation expense of $24 million was up from $19 million last quarter, owing to the onboarding of certain new employees over the past half year and the full quarter impact of equity grants issued in May. Fundraising expenses this quarter of $12 million were lower than last quarter. Through the first 3 quarters of 2014, Carlyle has raised 7% more capital than we did in 2013. But our year-to-date fundraising costs are more than 30% lower, owing to utilizing…

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · UBS

To summarize, we have shown progress this quarter in a number of our key areas of focus and in a number of our key metrics. Our focus though is always on overall long-term performance and not quarter-to-quarter numbers. There are, to be sure, some areas where we expect to face challenges going forward, but overall, we are pleased with the progress and direction of the firm. Now we will be happy to take your questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Ken Worthington of JP Morgan.

Kenneth B. Worthington

Analyst · JP Morgan

Wanted to chat about compensation, particularly in private equity and GMS this quarter. I guess, primarily, why was it up so much again in 3Q in those 2 areas? Was any of the compensation unusual in any way? So you've got transaction fees, and you've got catch-up management fees. Like, are those flowing through to make comp higher than would otherwise be the case? And if we look at compensation in PE and GMS, it grew 30% in PE annualized, 60% in GMS. What is the right growth rate we should expect in those areas over the next, call it, 12 months or the calendar year or so? I assume this pace will continue, but what should we be thinking about from a higher level perspective?

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · JP Morgan

Ken, this is Curt. Thanks for your question. I think any time you look at compensation in any one quarter, it's particularly challenging our business, given the number of moving parts. Also, I think you always have to look at in connection with fee-related earnings in total, which increased 58% year-to-date over 2013. The way that I typically like to look at this and think about it and analyze this is over a longer-term period. So let's say, if you looked at the last 3 years, funds that were in place beginning in 2011, along with the back office associated with supporting that, actually their comp has grown at a pretty reasonable rate, about 3% to 4% on a compounded average annual rate over that time. The other components that kind of add to it are really the acquisitions that we've done over that 3-year period, which included investments in ESG, Claren Road, DGAM, Metropolitan, AlpInvest, et cetera. And so that also kind of clouds period-over-period analysis. And also impacting compensation is we continue to invest really in new products and new funds in that business. And as we continue to invest, obviously, it can distort that. Best way to probably look at this is, again, over a longer-term period, 3% to 4%.

Kenneth B. Worthington

Analyst · JP Morgan

Okay. And the growth this quarter was substantial year-over-year, sequentially kind of anyway you cut it. Is it based on new teams you're hiring? And I guess, if so, when do they start to pay off?

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · JP Morgan

So it depends on, obviously, which piece of the business we're looking at. But a lot of that kind of comes down to continuing to invest in new products, especially in the GMS space. We're doing the same really across the entire platform. You also, quite frankly, have the pickup in fee-related earnings. And as we adjust for how we look at kind of total year comp, we try to obviously set that correctly in each quarter, and there'll be a true-up at year-end as we look at everything for the past year.

Operator

Operator

And the next question is from Brennan Hawken of UBS.

Brent Thill

Analyst · UBS

This is Brent Thill on for Brennan. Just wanted to ask a quick question on kind of the retail opportunity. I guess, recently, there's a new vehicle, Carlyle Private Equity Access 2014. Just wanted to see what kind of dialogue you've had with investors thus far and I guess, just how receptive investors have been to the product.

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · UBS

Well, it's still in the preliminary stages, but there's no doubt that investors who are, I would call them, medium high net worth to upper high net worth are interested in getting the higher rates of return that private equity has historically received. I think this will be a very large growth area for our sector over the next few years. But because of regulatory kinds of concerns and just making certain that we are not doing anything in conflict with other businesses we have and other considerations, it's moving not at a velocity that will show up immediately on the bottom line. But we have a team that's working on it, and we do think that it will be something that will be significant to us a bit down the road.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Robert Lee of KBW.

Robert Lee

Analyst · KBW

My question is actually on the CLO business. Just kind of your thoughts on that. I mean, it's been a pretty successful business for you the last couple of years. But there's some new risk retention rules out there related to the industry. I'm just kind of interested in your take on how that impacts your thoughts around the business, whether you see it as more of an opportunity. Or does it make the economics a bit more challenging? I mean, how should we -- what's your thoughts on that?

William E. Conway

Analyst · KBW

Sure. Rob, this is Bill. I would say that we still like the CLO business, that maybe, to some extent, having people have some skin on the game is a great business practice, frankly, anyway. I don't think that the 5% risk retention rules that are going to go in effect over the next few years will significantly diminish our interest in building that business. I think year-to-date through 2013, we're actually #1 in terms of number of CLOs that we've launched. We're constantly assessing it, but I think that it will continue to be attractive business for us. And frankly, during the the 2008, '09 global financial crisis, when everything else was really having a major problem, the structure of the CLOs enabled all of our CLOs to survive in that business and come out just fine in the end. So I think it's a pretty good business of core holding for Carlyle and one we'll keep trying to grow.

Robert Lee

Analyst · KBW

Okay, great. And then maybe I did have one question on the Solutions business. I mean, there was -- looks like some pretty healthy, maybe unusually large, hard to say, outflows or distributions from that. Was that just a big period for realizations? Or was there anything else kind of happening in the Solutions business behind the scenes that led to some outflows? Just trying to get a feel for what drove that.

William E. Conway

Analyst · KBW

Well, the assets -- this is Bill. The assets under management in Solutions went from $56.7 billion to $54.3 billion. Remember, most of our business is run in dollars. Our main accounting scheme is in dollars. AlpInvest started with 2 big European investors as their primary investors. Across our entire portfolio, I know that, by far, the biggest single source in reducing the assets under management was, I would say went down a couple of billion, was actually the drop in -- was the strength of the dollar, which caused, like, an FX translation loss on the order of $3.5 billion.

Robert Lee

Analyst · KBW

Okay. And then if I could, maybe just one last question, really just updating your thoughts around the distribution policy. I mean, obviously, you have the flat distribution for 4 quarters and the true-up. But any updated thoughts on migrating the policy in the future towards more in line with what many of your peers do?

William E. Conway

Analyst · KBW

What we have said consistently and what we'll say today is that we're always assessing our policy. And at the end of this year, we will really dig into it again and see whether we should change that policy. It's a policy we initiated because, as a new public company, we wanted to be certain we had the cash to do this -- the dividends at the rate we said. We are a public company a little bit less time than some of our peers. And we recognize what they have done, and we have a different policy. We're comfortable with it today, but at the beginning of the year after this year, we will take a full look at it again. And that's all I can say now.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And the next question is from Chris Kotowski of Oppenheimer.

Christoph M. Kotowski

Analyst · Oppenheimer

I wanted to ask about the rate of realizations versus the rate of realized cash carry. So you had $3.2 billion of private equity realizations. And if you, as a rule of thumb, say, "Okay, it's roughly historically been at 2x MOIC." That would say there's a gain of $1.6 billion, and 20% of that would be close to $300 million, something like that. And in the first half of the year, your -- that was actually -- that crude math kind of worked. But this quarter, $125 million of realized cash carry relative to $3.2 billion looks a bit light. And I was wondering are there funds in which you're not taking carry. Or why is -- why was that pattern there?

William E. Conway

Analyst · Oppenheimer

Well, this is Bill. I'll start and Curt may finish this one. First of all, I'd say that your general mathematics actually works over some period of time. It -- but in any specific quarter, it's going to be a function of exactly which funds have exactly what kind of realizations. For example, sometimes when we do a recap, we don't actually think of that as a realization. Yes, it's money coming back to the investors. It's reducing the 8% preferred return, that's stopping the clock on that, but it doesn't actually lead to a carry. It would be an example of the kind of things that can happen. The other thing that happens, it depends on which funds at which times are doing the realizations.

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · Oppenheimer

And the only thing I would add to that is as we've looked at when we take carry, there's a number of criteria that we use historically as spelled out in terms of how we think about it. So where is the fund in its investment cycle? Where are we from a return profile? How much of, essentially, returns have we already given back to investors? So that we actually make sure that we can manage any kind of clawback risk because we don't want to take carry and then really be in a position where we have to return that back. And so we try to manage that carefully.

Christoph M. Kotowski

Analyst · Oppenheimer

Okay. And then just as a follow-up, is there any way of us figuring out roughly what the MOIC on the $3.2 billion in realizations was?

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · Oppenheimer

One table that is very helpful in our earnings release is to look at Slide 26. Slide 26 would give you the remaining fair value of our more significant funds. It will tell you what invested -- multiple of invested capital is. It will tell you whether or not those funds are in accrued carry, whether or not we've actually taken carry in the last 12 months, catch-up rate and the like. One thing that's important here to note is the number of funds that really are in accrued carry is up from the prior quarter, as are the number of funds that have realized carry in the last 12 months.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Brian Bedell of Deutsche Bank.

Brian Bedell

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

If you can just talk a little bit about the performance accrual reversals in both GMS and Solutions segment and then talk about sort of the forward look into fourth quarter. I know in the GMS segment, you're saying one of the hedge with regards to the -- the hedge fund aggregate is still -- how do you think of the [ph] performance so far in 4Q? I guess just the outlook into 4Q for realizations in those 2 segments -- or realized performance fees rather.

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thank you. So on an accrued basis in the third quarter, roughly $30 million net performance fees were reversed, really, in the GMS segment related to the hedge funds. Our hedge funds struggled like others in the third quarter. And so we had that true-up, essentially, as we previously said. Related to Solutions, there's a reversal of accrued performance fees. We'll see that coming through in the -- really, because our fund went into carry in the second quarter, so you had higher performance fees in the second quarter. Lower performance fees in the third quarter, again, just on an accrued basis, so essentially it reverses out. That business is best to look at on a year-to-date basis from a performance perspective because of that very fact. In terms of forecast, we generally don't comment on forecast going forward. And that's hopefully helpful, just to understand this business is choppy, is the normal course of action for what we do.

Brian Bedell

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

And then just on fundraising, again, well ahead of schedule in terms of your $20 billion target already there. Just maybe a peek into the -- maybe it's early looking into 2015, but maybe an early look of what your fundraising plans are as we move into 2015, whether we'll keep this -- whether you think we'll keep this pace up.

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Well, it's always difficult to predict that far into the future. We have seen overall in our fundraising and in the industry fundraising a fairly big demand for products that either are unique or have long track records. So the international energy fund is a relatively unique product, and that's why we're probably raising a larger first sum than anything we ever raised for a first fund. But some of our funds have been around a while, like Asia IV doubled, 50% more than they had before. So investor demand is pretty significant, so it's hard to say whether we ever abate. But right now, I want to remind everybody that the amount of money being raised in private equity, while it's still pretty attractive and we're raising more than our fair share, is still well below the 2007 peak. So we could still raise significant sums for the industry or for Carlyle even much more than we're raising now and still be below our peak year. For example, in 2007, I believe we raised $30 billion. Now that was a smaller organization or smaller fundraising team, but it just showed you, in that period of time, people were just so interested in private equity that they were just shoveling money to people like us. We're not quite at that level yet, but we are moving back toward that level. And so therefore, I would say, next year, unless some unforeseen macroeconomic crisis would occur, we would expect to be a very healthy fundraising total. But I don't want to give a specific number. I just think we're in pretty good shape and our products seem to be well received by the market.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Mike Carrier of Bank of America.

Michael Carrier

Analyst · Bank of America

Curt, I just want to understand 2 things on the numbers that you went through. Just on the Solutions business, like, I understand the reversal in those performance fees. But just want to understand how that correlates to the tax benefits. And maybe if you have like a net number of the impact to ENI because the unfortunate thing is that we can ding you for the negative performance fees but then exclude the tax benefit because it's onetime. And so if we got the net number, it would just be helpful. And then on the realizations going forward, particularly for the GMS on the hedge fund business, because we don't have the detail on each of the hedge funds, I just want to make sure, like, when we think about the realizations in the fourth quarter x [ph] a big rebound, we should just likely mute the expectations for that product in terms of crystallizing the fees. And if not, that's fine, but I just want to make sure our expectations are in line.

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · Bank of America

Thanks, Mike. So with respect first to the Solutions business, the right way to think about the performance fees is, in structuring those deals, most of it really relates to -- these are older funds, so a lot of the benefit from the performance fees goes to the team. The portion that really comes to the firm really covers the taxes. So those fees are set up to essentially provide returns to the team and cover taxes because they're all subject to corporate-level tax. So on a net basis, ENI out of that, essentially breakeven in the quarter. You will see the fluctuation really in the tax benefit. And that's why the tax benefit comes up this period, really offsetting that decrease in the period. On GMS, the hedge fund -- the accrued performance fees related to the hedge funds essentially all reversed to 0 across the board in the quarter.

William E. Conway

Analyst · Bank of America

Right. And you're right to -- and this is Bill. And you're right to say that unless we get a significant rebound in the market performance or the performance of those hedge funds, it will stay there. And if we get that rebound, then it may change, but we'll see.

Operator

Operator

And the next question is from Patrick Davitt of Autonomous.

M. Patrick Davitt

Analyst · Autonomous

My question is in a few parts around oil and gas and energy exposure. Could you possibly quantify positions in your energy portfolio there directly exposed to oil prices? How do you think about the performance of that portfolio in a sub-$80 oil price world? And does a sub-$80 oil price world change your view on the energy investing opportunity?

William E. Conway

Analyst · Autonomous

Okay. This is Bill. I would say that, first of all, as the story in yesterday's journal spoke about, when energy prices fall, there are winners and there are losers. Our estimates out of this consumer from a fall in energy prices is earning an extra $50 billion to $100 billion a year because of that. And obviously, they're going to spend most of that on consumer goods and the like. So consumer goods companies tend to do pretty good when energy prices are falling. On the other hand, you probably have seen the numbers that at $80, still 95% or so of the wells in United States can cover their costs at an $80 price. Now it's also true that if there's a lot of oil, people are going to drill less wells. And so there will be, over time, some impact to that. When I talk to my portfolio managers across the various energy products, so far, they would say, other than in the public portfolios, where public equity companies are probably down 10% or so since the end of the third quarter, people -- and frankly, I think the energy prices generally are down over 20% since June. You can see that there's not been a -- they would say there's not been a dramatic effect yet on their businesses. Either they have hedges in place, they can continue to produce -- in some of our businesses, like our big refinery in Philadelphia, it isn't so much the level of energy prices that are affected. It's what's the spread, the so-called crack spread between what we can buy the energy for and what we can sell it for. So it has very mixed results across the portfolio, just as it does across the whole economy.

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · Autonomous

And let me add that predictions of energy prices or oil prices, I'd say invariably, are wrong over a sustained period of time. If you ask any oil executive -- company executive where the oil is going to be in 3 month, 6 months, they just -- they don't really know. About 3 months ago or 4 months ago, it was generally felt that oil at $100 a barrel or more was here to stay, and now we're, of course, at $80. So I wouldn't assume that anything that we have today is going to be there for 3 or 6 months. The second point I'd like to make is that when we own assets that might have gone down in value because maybe oil prices have gone down, we're not compelled to sell. But we have a lot of capital to invest in energy prices that may be lower, so we think we've got an advantage by having a broad gauge platform. We might take advantage of some of the lower energy prices, but we aren't forced to sell things into those lower markets. So generally, we think we'll be okay. But again, I don't really want to say for certain that energy prices are going to be -- or oil prices at $80 a barrel any time for 6 or 9 months. You just can't really say.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Craig Siegenthaler of Crédit Suisse.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst

So this morning, Virtus is reporting that the SEC is requesting information from private equity firms regarding how they calculate their net returns, specifically how they account for capital as not generating fees. Can you just remind us how you calculate your net returns and share any thoughts you have on the subject?

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · JP Morgan

So on capital that is not invested, from a fee-earning AUM perspective, that's only going to include capital that is actually generating fees. So when we have a fee holiday on a fund, that capital doesn't count into our fee-earning assets and isn't generating fee revenue in that situation. From a -- looking at our appreciation calculation, that's kind of where the question goes, that's only on fair value in the ground, a comparison of beginning fair value to ending fair value and really, the change on a lifetime basis in the period. So uninvested capital doesn't come into play in that calculation. From a performance fee perspective, again, it's the same kind of deal. It's on an as-liquidated basis assuming the fair value as of the date of the return or date of the reports. And so that is essentially run through the waterfall. Again, uninvested capital doesn't come into play in our business for that calculation.

William E. Conway

Analyst · KBW

Yes. This is Bill. And although the story is news to me, it's not all that surprising. Imagine a fund where you have a certain amount of commitments and all you're doing is charging a management fee on that. You have not invested any. Well obviously, you're going to have negative returns in that kind of case, and those fees will continue to be taken into account when you actually invest money. But when you're calculating the net internal rate of return, you are just taking into account all the expenses that we charge. You're taking into account the performance fees that Carlyle, hopefully, will earn on those fees and you're taking it against invested capital, including expenses, but not including uninvested capital or committed capital, if you will.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Glenn Schorr of ISI.

Glenn Schorr

Analyst · ISI

Wonder if you could give just a little more color. I think the investment loss in Real Assets was 4 or 5 quarters now straight. Not humongous numbers, but still not used to what we're seeing. Maybe just a little color on what's going on in both your LatAm and European real estate markets.

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · ISI

Sure. So if you look at in total, actually, we had a gain this quarter in total on investment income of $3.5 million, made up of about a $6.5 million realized loss and $3 million-- I'm sorry, $6.5 million unrealized gain and $3 million realized loss. That $3 million realized loss primarily is driven from Urbplan, where that's a business that we consolidate. We have made investments year to -- really, since we started consolidating, about $42 million. And our cumulative losses on that, thus far, about $36 million related to Urbplan. For the mezzanine loan, that is essentially an investment into one of our funds, an initial principal balance of about $54 million. It was written down to about $30 million -- I'm sorry, $24 million. We've taken roughly $30 million of losses on that year-to-date. In terms of what the future holds, we really don't know. But as we continue to invest, we'll -- may incur losses or may actually realize future income dependent upon future performance.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Marc Irizarry of Goldman Sachs.

Marc S. Irizarry

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

David, a question on liquid alternative fundraising versus last liquid locked-in capital. Any perspective -- I guess, if you look at GMS and hedge fund performance, I don't know if you have any perspective on what the sort of forward outlook might look like for redemptions from more liquid hedge funds or maybe institutional interest in more locked-in product versus less liquid product. Any perspective on that would be great.

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Okay. As a general rule, we have been in -- largely in the closed-in nonliquid alternatives business, and that's been the bulk of our fundraising efforts over many years. We have a very good team to raise those funds, and we have the bulk of our money invested through those funds. We, like other firms comparable with us, are experimenting with and raising more money a bit more than we had before in liquid alternatives, but still, it's a relatively modest part of our business. It's hard to talk about redemptions and where they're going to be. There's no doubt that some people like liquidity. But some large institutional investors, public pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and others seem to be not in a great need of liquidity, and therefore, they tend to be willing to lock their money up for longer periods of time. I do think we will grow the liquid alternatives business, as other firms like ours will, but it still won't be a dominant part of our business for the foreseeable future, at least next year or 2. But I don't really have any comment on whether there are going to be certain amount of redemptions or not from the hedge funds, I just don't know.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Ken Worthington of JP Morgan.

Kenneth B. Worthington

Analyst · JP Morgan

Just want to follow up. During the quarter, there was a settlement for collusion, I think, attributable to CP IV. Was that fully paid off this quarter? Or is there still a drag that we should expect in coming quarters on realized carry from, I think, CP IV?

William E. Conway

Analyst · JP Morgan

Ken, this is Bill. In direct answer to your question, no, there's no additional drag. We -- I have to go comment on it. I find myself unable to do not to make a comment. We thought the case was without merit. Once everybody else settled, we thought the risk to our fund investors and unitholders was just too great for us to continue to take. In terms of why CP IV, CP IV was the fund that was doing most of the investing -- actually all the investing in connection with the time frame that lawsuit was supposed to cover. We thought it was an expense of the fund. As you may know, virtually, today, all public company acquisitions, there's oftentimes a suit right away settled in connection with a public acquisition. And I might also comment that although CP IV paid this expense, obviously, Carlyle self-paid about 25% of the cost of the final settlement. And CP IV is a fund where we had gross gains of $10 billion, so the $100 million roughly settlement represented about 1% of those gains. The net MOIC changed on the fund from, I think, 1.97x to 1.96x in connection with this settlement. Of course, nobody wants to pay these kind of expenses, least of all of us. It doesn't have very much effect on the unitholders. The investors in the fund, clearly, they weren't happy, but I think they generally understood what happened.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Michael Kim of Sandler O'Neill.

Michael S. Kim

Analyst · Sandler O'Neill

So just coming back to the outlook for realizations. Sounds like strategic sales and dividend recaps continued to pick up, maybe potentially at the expense of IPOs and secondary offerings, at least to some extent. So just curious what the potential implications could be as it relates to the time line or the trajectory of your distributable earnings.

William E. Conway

Analyst · Sandler O'Neill

Well, this is Bill. No forecast on that, but I would say that we continue to have some IPOs in the pipeline. When it comes to realizations, also, remember, IPOs are a little bit of a mixed blessing. When you do an IPO, you're not really exiting the investment sometimes. Sometimes, the IPO happens, you don't sell any. Sometimes, the IPO happens, you're starting to sell but you continue to have a large public position that, hopefully, one of the Carlyle strategies in the past has been trying to sell all the way up. When you do the IPO, there's not enough liquidity, and there's a big overhang from Carlyle. And you're not happy with the price. And sometimes, you sell a little bit and the liquidity goes up and the overhang goes down and the price goes up and the company performs and things work out. Obviously, the volatility, if you'd asked me this question 3 weeks ago when we were in the very part of early October, one would have thought, "Well, then, there weren't going to likely be many IPOs." At different days, people have different feelings on what they're going to be. But no projection on it. We do have, of course, some expected sales in the marketplace that we previously announced, Vance and PQ in the U.S., which are both big sales, as is the RAC, selling half of the RAC in the U.K. Hard to be more precise. I wish I could be.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Craig Siegenthaler of Crédit Suisse.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst

Just a follow-up here in the capital raising front. How much capital have you raised cumulatively in the Japan buyout and in the European tech buyout funds? And also, can you remind us what the capital targets are for these 2 funds?

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · UBS

Yes. In those 2 funds, did you say?

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst

Yes.

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · UBS

In the Japan buyout fund, we're raising our third fund, the target is roughly 1 -- in U.S. dollars, roughly $1 billion. We've raised roughly $600 million so far. That has come largely from Japan. And what we like to do in this kind of funds is to raise the money in the kind of host area because that gives credibility to when you go outside. So we're now in the process of raising money outside of Japan. The fund will be probably smaller than our last-generation Japan fund just because the interest in Japan has probably been less than it was when we raised the last one, though we still are, I think, the dominant private equity player in Japan. We've been there longer and have a longer track record. But $1 billion is the target. I won't say whether we'll go over that target or not. It's still a little early. In the European technology fund, the target is EUR 500 million, and we are, I'd say, about 60% there at this point in time. And I don't anticipate, in either case, the Japan fund or the European technology fund, a problem in getting to the target.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst

And maybe I can ask just one follow-up here. Can you provide us any color on the CLO pipeline?

David M. Rubenstein

Analyst · UBS

On the CLO pipeline?

William E. Conway

Analyst · KBW

Yes. This is Bill. We've tended to do 1 or 2 CLOs a quarter, usually one a quarter in the United States or maybe more than that occasionally and maybe a little less regularly than that in Europe. Right now, it looks like we could gets additional CLOs done. Of course, they're so dependent on what happens to the various spreads across the various asset and liability categories that make up the CLOs. But as you know, the CLO market has been pretty good all year long, well over $100 billion raised in CLOs. Carlyle has done $3 billion or $4 billion of that. And right now, I would expect that we would continue to be able to do those CLOs on that same kind of pace.

Operator

Operator

And the last question is from Mike Carrier of Bank of America.

Michael Carrier

Analyst · Bank of America

Just one question on the fee revenues, just given the catch-up on the management fees and in the transaction fees. Given the outlook for fundraising and then also for deployment, just want to -- I know it's tough to gauge, but should we be expecting some level of catch-up in transaction fees for the foreseeable future? Or was this an unusual quarter?

Curtis L. Buser

Analyst · Bank of America

This is Curt. So we -- in the last 2 quarters, we've benefited nicely from catch-up management fees and from transaction fees, both quarters. I tried to indicate that they were higher than normal, higher than prior periods. I think those will be -- periods going forward will -- maybe it will be the same, and maybe it will be lower in some periods. So it's hard to tell exactly. But you're right, those are the key items to think about from a toggling of where we'll fall on our fee-related earnings.

Operator

Operator

And at this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Daniel Harris for closing remarks.

Daniel F. Harris

Analyst

Thanks for your time and interest today. Feel free to follow up with me after the call with any additional questions you may have. And we look forward to speaking with you at next quarter's call.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect. Good day.