The Carlyle Group Inc. (CG) Stock Price & How to Invest

Founded in 1987 and public since May 2012, Carlyle raises money from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurers and, increasingly, individual investors, then deploys it across three reporting segments: Global Private Equity (buyouts, real assets, growth), Global Credit (direct lending, opportunistic credit, asset-backed finance, insurance solutions) and Carlyle AlpInvest (fund-of-funds, secondaries and co-investment, ~$112 billion of AUM on its own). About 2,500 employees work from 28 offices on four continents. Revenue arrives in three distinct shapes that behave nothing alike: recurring management fees charged on fee-earning capital, performance fees or carried interest recognised when funds exit investments above a hurdle, and principal investment income from the firm's own capital committed alongside clients. GAAP revenue therefore swings violently, from ~$3.0 billion in 2023 to ~$5.4 billion in 2024, which is why the industry reports fee-related earnings and distributable earnings instead.

Q2 2026 was among the strongest quarters Carlyle has posted since the 2021 boom. Fee-related earnings hit a record ~$358 million, up ~11% year over year at roughly a 47% margin, while distributable earnings of ~$472 million, or ~$1.07 per share after tax, were the highest in nearly four years and beat consensus near ~$0.94. Realisation activity did the heavy lifting: the firm returned ~$7 billion to fund investors in the quarter and ~$37 billion over the trailing year, and organic inflows of ~$30 billion in the first half were a company record. Markets have not rewarded it yet. Shares changed hands near ~$47.80 in early August 2026, down roughly 23% over 52 weeks and well below the ~$69.85 high, which puts the stock at a trailing P/E near ~49 on depressed GAAP earnings but a forward multiple closer to ~11.7. Capital returns continue through a ~$0.35 quarterly dividend, ~$1.40 annualised for a ~2.9% yield, plus ~$304 million of buybacks in the quarter.

Fundraising is cyclical and reflexive, so a stretch of weak fund performance or a closed exit window can shrink fee-earning AUM at the same moment carried interest stops converting to cash. Performance fees are inherently lumpy and unrealised carry is a mark, not money, meaning distributable earnings can fall by half in a quiet quarter without anything fundamental breaking. Higher-for-longer rates raise financing costs across portfolio companies and compress private-market valuations, while heavy competition for direct lending assets pressures credit spreads. On the legal side, a Delaware fiduciary-duty suit brought by a pension fund against co-founders William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello and David Rubenstein and other directors over a ~$344 million payment to terminate the firm's tax receivable agreement was allowed to proceed in 2024 and remains a derivative matter rather than a securities-fraud class action; no active securities-fraud class action against Carlyle was identified as of August 2026. Regulators in the US and Europe continue to scrutinise fee disclosure, valuation practices and the push of illiquid strategies into retail and retirement channels, which is precisely where much of the growth plan sits.

17 analysts publish price targets on CG, averaging $57.82 against a $47.80 price as of August 2026, or +21.0%. The published targets run from $49.00 to $73.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 8 buy, 9 hold, 1 sell. Over the last six months there have been 5 raises and 7 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full CG forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on The Carlyle Group Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. Fee-related earnings and the shift toward permanent capital. Record FRE of ~$358 million in Q2 2026 at a ~47% margin is the metric management has organised the firm around, because it is the part of the P&L that does not require an exit to materialise. The most optimistic published target, $73.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. Fundraising is cyclical and reflexive, so a stretch of weak fund performance or a closed exit window can shrink fee-earning AUM at the same moment carried interest stops converting to cash. The most pessimistic target, $49.00, is roughly what CG is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on CG, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see The Carlyle Group Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Total AUM: ~$485B as of June 30, 2026, up ~4% year over year
• Fee-related earnings (Q2 2026): ~$358M, a record, up ~11% YoY at a ~47% margin
• Distributable earnings (Q2 2026): ~$472M, or ~$1.07 per share after tax, the highest in nearly four years
• Perpetual capital AUM: ~$113B, up ~12% YoY; evergreen wealth AUM above ~$20B
• Market cap and price: ~$16.9B at ~$47.80 per share, ~353M shares outstanding, down ~23% over 52 weeks
• Valuation and payout: Trailing P/E ~49 on ~$0.96 TTM GAAP EPS versus a forward P/E near ~11.7; dividend ~$0.35 per quarter, ~2.9% yield, plus ~$304M of buybacks in Q2

GAAP earnings and the multiples built on them are close to meaningless for this business in isolation, because principal investment marks and consolidated fund accounting dominate the reported line. Trailing revenue of ~$3.6 billion looks like a ~42% collapse from the prior year purely because 2024 and 2025 carried heavy realised carry, while fee-related earnings set a record over the same window. The gap between a ~49 trailing multiple and a ~11.7 forward multiple is the market pricing in that distortion rather than expecting a fivefold earnings jump.

Other names that sit close to CG: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get CG exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so CG sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where CG fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Valuation here rests on how much of that ~$485 billion in AUM the market believes will keep producing durable fee-related earnings, with carried interest treated as the lumpy upside on top.

Whether CG is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is CG a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the CG stock forecast.

For income investors, whether CG pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does CG pay a dividend? And to weigh CG against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: CG vs BX and CG vs KKR.