Carlyle taps Nathan Urquhart to lead global fundraising campaigns

Private equity giant Carlyle Group has appointed Nathan Urquhart as its new global head of investor relations, a person with knowledge of the matter told Buyouts.

Urquhart will take charge of fundraising campaigns for all Carlyle investment platforms, including corporate PE, private debt and real assets, the person said. He will also run the global investor relations strategy and team.

Urquhart joined Carlyle in February 2019 to head global investor relations for the credit investment platform, according to his LinkedIn profile. He previously worked for 11 years at Oz Management, most recently as executive managing director and co-head of global investor relations.

Prior to Oz, Urquhart worked for four years in the private fund group of UBS, raising capital for buyout, private debt and infrastructure funds. He began his career as a corporate finance analyst with JP Morgan.

As a senior member of Carlyle’s credit team, Urquhart played a key role in the strategy’s recent outsized growth. Since 2016, it has been Carlyle’s fastest-growing platform, with managed assets nearly doubling to $50 billion, from $29 billion, Buyouts reported in August.

This was due to an overhaul of the strategy, led by Carlyle head of global credit Mark Jenkins, who was hired four years ago from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Jenkins and his team turned a narrowly focused credit unit into a global, multi-strategy operation by adding capabilities and securing capital for an array of new specialty fund offerings.

Carlyle’s credit platform expanded further in the past few months. At the end of September, it held $53 billion in assets, including about $9 billion in dry powder, the firm’s Q3 2020 financial results report said.

Based in Washington, DC, Carlyle today oversees about $230 billion in total assets. Kewsong Lee earlier in 2020 became the firm’s sole chief executive with the stepping down of former co-CEO Glenn Youngkin.

Carlyle declined to provide a comment on this story.

Action item: Read Nathan Urquhart’s biography here.