Equity for the transaction - expected to close in February 2014 - will come from Carlyle’s balance sheet, the firm said in a statement. George Main and Warren Wright will remain as chief executive and chief investment officer of DGAM, respectively.

DGAM will become part of Carlyle’s Solutions platform, which had assets under management of $48.4 billion at September 30 and includes AlpInvest, the private equity fund of funds operation, as well as Metropolitan Real Estate, acquired by Carlyle on November 1 this year (see more here).

“With the DGAM partnership, Carlyle’s Solutions platform is now positioned to offer investors the ability to allocate across alternatives in hedge funds, private equity and real estate,” said David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-CEO of Carlyle.

DGAM is an independent alternative investment manager and advisor founded by Main, Wright, Graham Thouret and Jeff Lucassen in 2004. The firm's client base is 100 per cent institutional and includes global public and private pension funds, endowments and sovereign wealth funds.

The Carlyle Group is a global alternative asset manager with $185 billion of assets under management across 122 funds and 81 fund of funds vehicles as of September 30, 2013.