Carlyle plans New York float with a tag of $8bn

The private-equity giant Carlyle, whose investments include the chemist Alliance Boots, Dunkin' Donuts and the health shop Holland & Barrett, is gunning for a market valuation of between $7.5bn (£5bn) and $8bn when it floats in New York this spring, insiders said yesterday.

Carlyle has $147bn in assets under management, including building halls of residence for at least 4,000 British students via a tie-up with the housing group GEL. It is expected to float a 10 per cent stake to raise $750m to $800m. This is a sharply lower market value than in 2007, when the Abu Dhabi state investment firm Mubadala paid $1.35bn for a 7.5 per cent stake in Carlyle.

An $8bn valuation would also be far less than that of rival Blackstone, which had $166bn assets under management at the end of last year and is valued at just over $16bn.

William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello and David Rubenstein, who set up the Carlyle in Washington in 1987, will not immediately cash in from the float. The firm is expected to use the proceeds to pay down debt and fund acquisitions. It has recruited 21 banks as underwriters, including Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS.