The Carlyle Group announced a sudden withdrawal from two of its newest emerging market ventures, closing down its central and eastern European operations and its Asian leveraged finance business just months after their launch.A month ago David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle, told a conference in Dubai that private equity would invest more in emerging markets amid growing nervousness about "submerging markets".
Carlyle blamed the worsening climate for private equity investments and fundraising for the move, which is expected to trigger the departure of the 19 staff employed by the two subsidiaries. The central and eastern European operation opened in Warsaw in November 2007 and had 12 staff. It was raising a fund for buy-outs in the region, but had not done any deals. Carlyle declined to say how much investors had committed.
The US group said it could still invest in central and eastern Europe via its â?¬5.4bn European buy-out fund.
Carlyle Asia leveraged finance group, which launched in May 2007, hired seven staff, including its head Eric Mason, a former banker for JPMorgan in Hong Kong. It was raising funds to invest in loans for private equity deals.
Carlyle runs 64 different funds around the world with a total of $89.3bn under management and employs more than 1,000 people.
