Is Carlyle Group Inc. (CGABL) a good stock to buy?
Nothing we have tested argues against it, and one check argues for it.
What each rating means, in numbers
Business quality — Middling. Passes 3 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
How wild is the price? — Very calm. The share price swings about 22% in a typical year, which puts it in the calmest fifth. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 0.3 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.1% to 0.7%.
What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100
Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.
The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.
Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.
Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.
▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about CGABL — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read CGABL (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
Our DCF for CGABL lands well below today's price. For a non-cyclical that usually means the market is pricing in growth far beyond recent cash flows (or there's a data quirk), so we don't headline a single fair-value number.
What to use instead: The Reverse-DCF shows exactly how much growth the price demands — decide whether that's realistic. Pair it with peer multiples.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — CGABL's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
How does CGABL stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to CGABL and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If CGABL is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
2.7x / 3.0x / 4.8x |
| EV / EBITEV / EBITDA — Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Why it matters: A classic "what would a private buyer pay" multiple — used in M&A. Strips out tax and capital-structure noise. Reference: 8–12x for mature businesses · 15–25x for growth · Below 5x often signals distress Full explanation → |
13.1x / 15.2x / 16.3x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HLNE | Hamilton Lane INC | Asset Management | $5.4B | 7.4x | — | — | 4.4% |
| STEP | StepStone Group Inc. | Asset Management | $5.3B | 2.7x | — | — | 1.4% |
| VCTR | Victory Capital Holdings, Inc. | Asset Management | $5.3B | 4.8x | — | 13.1x | 6.4% |
| LAZ | Lazard, Inc. | Asset Management | $5.3B | 2.2x | — | 21.3x | 2.5% |
| MORN | Morningstar, Inc. | Asset Management | $6.9B | 3.3x | — | 15.2x | 5.0% |
| MAAS | Maase Inc. | Asset Management | $4.8B | 44.2x | — | — | 1.4% |
| MC | Moelis & Co | Asset Management | $4.5B | — | — | 16.3x | 6.9% |
| JHG | JANUS HENDERSON GROUP PLC | Asset Management | $8.0B | 2.7x | — | 8.6x | 8.0% |
Bankruptcy + quality screens
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Middling. Passes 3 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Bankruptcy score (Altman Z) — Distress zone. Altman Z is 0.49. It combines working capital, retained earnings, operating profit and market value against total assets into one bankruptcy score. Above 3.0 is the safe zone, 1.8 to 3.0 is grey, below 1.8 is the distress zone. It was calibrated on manufacturers in 1968, so it reads asset-light and heavily-financed businesses badly — which is why it is one input here and never the verdict.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Distress zone under the classic Altman thresholds — scores here have historically preceded a high rate of financial distress within ~2 years. This is a warning signal, not a direct bankruptcy probability, and its reliability varies by industry. Be very skeptical of any "cheap" valuation on this name.
The classic Z-score was calibrated on manufacturers. It is less reliable for asset-light or non-manufacturing businesses (broadcasters, media, software, services) and not applicable to banks, REITs, or insurers — for those the coefficients and the asset-turnover term distort the result. Read it as one screening input, not a verdict.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $808.7M in FY2025.
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✗ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow -$3,275.5M (was -$759.5M the prior year).Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
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✗ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$3,275.5M vs net income $808.7M.Why this matters: When cash generated exceeds reported earnings, profits are high-quality (not propped up by accruals or one-time items).
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 2.8% vs 4.4% a year ago.Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $29,116.0M).
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· Short-term liquidity (current ratio) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Share count (dilution)Share count held roughly flat (358.6M → 359.7M year-over-year).
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✗ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.16x vs 0.23x a year ago.Why this matters: Asset turnover measures how much revenue each dollar of assets generates. Rising = more productive use of the asset base.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Carlyle Group Inc. due to its negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → after stock compensation of -$3.7 billion and negative operating cash flow of -$3.3 billion in the latest fiscal year. Investors are likely focused on the company's ability to generate consistent fee-related earnings and grow its assets under management. The biggest risk to our assumptions is the continued decline in revenue, which has fallen by -14.1% per year over the last four years, indicating potential challenges in its core business operations.
As of 4 days ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Growth in assets under management (AUM)
- Improvement in fee-related earnings
- Return to positive operating cash flow
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Revenue fell -12% to $4.78B.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$3.75B — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Net income fell -21% to $808.7M.
Nothing was clearly improving year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Harvey M Schwartz serves as the Chief Executive Officer, with Justin Plouffe as the Chief Financial Officer. Other key executives include Kate Elizabeth Heinzelman as General Counsel and Jeffrey Nedelman and John C. Redett as Co-Presidents, overseeing the firm's operations.
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
What They Make
Carlyle Group Inc. is a global investment firm that manages a diverse portfolio of private equity, credit, and investment solutions. They generate revenue primarily from management fees and performance fees paid by institutional and individual investors in their funds.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B), dividend yield & payout — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing CGABL based on expectations for future growth in assets under management and the potential for a rebound in performance fees, despite the recent negative operating cash flow. Investors are betting on the firm's long-term ability to attract capital and generate returns from its investment strategies, rather than its current cash flow generation.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself through a combination of existing cash reserves of $2.0 billion and capital raises, given its negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → after stock compensation of -$3.7 billion.
Normalized FCF
This is the model the pipeline would normally apply to a company like this. Its output failed our checks here, so no intrinsic value is published; the notes below are context, not a valuation.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | -33.2% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Sector Default Source | Financial Services sector default |
| Best Estimate | 8.0% |
| Method | sector_default |
| Growth Basis | total |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings cash-flow model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project net interest income and fee-income lines independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been declining at -14.1% per year over the last four years, from $8.8 billion to $4.8 billion.
Geography & Markets
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)43.0NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (9 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (8)
- Investment-phase normalization: the company is profitable with strong operating cash flow, but current free cash flow is depressed by a capital-spending build. The model values median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex — not the depressed single year and not a commodity cycle.
- Median OCF is negative — OCF-based normalization not applicable.
- Normalized OCF-capex was negative. Falling back to median raw FCF.
- No positive normalized FCF. Using EPS as proxy.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Extreme valuation: the price is far above the model output for a non-cyclical — likely dominated by a data issue. The model value is suppressed.
- VALUATION HELD (EXTREME_MODEL_GAP): per-share values suppressed due to the model output failed plausibility checks.
- Extreme valuation gap (P/IV withheld — see the note above): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Carlyle Group Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.8B | 808.7M | $2.18 |
| 2024 | 5.4B | 1.0B | $2.77 |
| 2023 | 3.0B | -608.4M | $-1.68 |
| 2022 | 4.4B | 1.2B | $3.35 |
| 2021 | 8.8B | 3.0B | $8.20 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -3.3B | 99.4M | 374.7M | -3.7B |
| 2024 | -759.5M | 77.7M | 467.9M | -1.3B |
| 2023 | 204.9M | 66.6M | 249.1M | -110.8M |
| 2022 | -379.3M | 40.6M | 154.0M | -573.9M |
| 2021 | 1.8B | 41.4M | 163.1M | 1.6B |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: -3.3B − 99.4M − 374.7M (stock-based comp) = -3.7B. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a mid-cycle estimate (median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex and stock compensation — by design NOT the table's FCF, which deducts every year's full capex), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 29.1B |
| Total Liabilities | 22.1B |
| Equity | 5.8B |
Similar companies worth a look
Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.
The questions people ask about CGABL
Is Carlyle Group Inc. (CGABL) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Carlyle Group Inc., because one number would not be reliable for this business (the page explains why). Judge it on what today's price assumes, its financial-health checks and what insiders are doing, all shown here from SEC filings. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Carlyle Group Inc. (CGABL) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Carlyle Group Inc., so we do not call it overvalued or undervalued. The page shows what growth today's price assumes and how the company's finances look instead. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Carlyle Group Inc.'s own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.